Even Chances
by Amarin Rose
Summary: Unrelated 2nd chances for Even Robins 24: Steph becomes Helena's sidekick. 25: Jason saves Tim from suicide. 26: Steph doesn't need Batman. 27: Jason saves Dick's parents. 28: Her choice taken away, Steph needs to heal. 29: Superman is Robin's friend.
1. Jason: Spoils Of War

**Spoils Of War**

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Rating: PG  
Summary: AU after _Killing Joke_. Jason will never be Robin again…but that doesn't mean he's out of the game.

* * *

Jason was never going to be Robin again. For one thing, Robin needed **two** eyes, and a working set of legs. (He could kick just as hard as ever with his right, but the muscles would always be weak, and it hurt a damn whole lot. Not like pain had ever bothered him, though.)

For another thing, Robin was Batman's partner. And Jason knew Bruce would never let him anywhere near the streets again, even if he hadn't said as much – yet.

Fuck that. He'd never quit at anything before in his life; he wasn't about to start now.

It's a lot easier contemplating getting back out on the streets knowing that **he** won't be there, though. The Joker died in that explosion – the Tibetan equivalent of a stone gargoyle fell on top of him while he was escaping. Jason thinks that's karmic justice at work. But if he was ever going to be part of the cape and cowl crowd again, he needed help. It pretty much blasted what was left of his pride to little pieces to admit it, but having a near-death-by-crowbar experience will do that to a guy. Get him to admit to a lot of things he wouldn't have before.

Unfortunately, Dick was the only one he could count on to help him (he'd never really been a part of the Titans like Dick had; he'd never been **Robin** like Dick had), and Dick was off with Barbara in Metropolis, getting her used to that bodybrace (STAR Labs had retro-engineered a lot of things from Brainiac's tech, and Bruce Wayne's money bypassed a lot of strings) so she wouldn't have to use the damn chair for the rest of her life.

(Jason's the only one whose life has gone downhill in the past few years.)

Which meant a costumed identity was going to have to wait. A civilian identity, apart from his **father** (and right now he's so angry with Bruce he can't think straight, but he knows Bruce is better than his father ever was, better than his moth–) like Dick did when he became Nightwing.

No one's watching over Bludhaven while Nightwing's gone – other than Huntress, who's more focused on her Mafia targets, and Black Canary, who's really only filling in while she gets over her latest lover's quarrel with Green Arrow.

There's a war on out there, and Jason's determined to make sure the good guys win. He can't do much – yet – but what he is doing is going to help him in the long run. He's technically too young to work in a cop bar, but it's amazing how few not-exactly-law-abiding people are unwilling to card a guy with as many scars as he has now.

Jason's planning on getting good and drunk right after the fight with Bruce he knows is going to happen.

He works in the same cop bar that Dick used to; gets more information than him too, and why not? A guy with one eye is, apparently, to the crooked, drunken cops of Bludhaven, the equivalent of a guy with no ears. They even talk about him right in front of him, and if he weren't undercover, he would seriously put the smackdown on some of their asses. But thanks to the BHPDs lack of tact, he now knows that half the pigs in the place think he lost his eye in some crooked deal gone wrong and is working in this shithole to 'make amends, ha-ha-ha.' The other half think he lost his eyes in some double cross gone wrong and are hoping being surrounded by cops will protect him.

Fuck that. He may not be Robin anymore, but he was taking care of himself long before Batman came along.

He's not going to get nearly as much information as oracle this way, but it's going to be more…focused…in the crime in Bludhaven. There's a guy named Roland Desmond in charge of pretty much everything illegal (and not); everything besides the mob, but it looks like he's moving in on that territory, and Huntress, at least, treats him with the same disdain she always did when he suggests a partnership – before she agrees.

He's got the costume (pieced together from all the old ones in the Cave, with the help of a long-suffering, reluctant Alfred. It's the dark purple color of a bruise; Alfred calls it eggplant), now all he needs is a name.

He thinks Spoiler will do.

* * *

THE END


	2. Steph: Okay To Hope

**Okay To Hope**

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Rating: PG  
Summay: All Steph needs is her friends…and hope.

* * *

Batman never told her to stop working in his city – at least not after that once – but when Steph goes over a month without finding any real crime to fight, she knows what's going on.

But she knows that Catwoman works the East End, and there's a few blocks between it and the rest of the Gotham where she might be able to do some good, so off she goes.

Whenever she and Catwoman run into each other over a scuffled, they help each other out, but they aren't really partners, per se. She's another lone operative, and Catwoman's just the only one that doesn't want to see her grounded.

It's nice.

It's two weeks before a Bat shows up, and it's Cass, not him, so Steph is okay with it.

It only happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays, rarely ever both in the same week, and Steph is never sure when it's going to be. Cass will show up halfway through her patrol, and for the last half-hour she'll show Steph fighting moves.

She doesn't need to be able to read body language to know that she's supposed to practice those in the time between meetings. Steph's getting better, slowly but surely.

It takes a few months for Steph to figure out that Cass is showing her moves that will take her only until their next meeting to learn, which means she **can** figure out how long it will be until Cass shows up.

Then her mother falls off the wagon again (only, as pretty much all times before, Steph isn't sure whether she was ever **on** it to begin with) and her father is apparently dead. Batman sent her a note via Cass that says he was working with the Suicide Squad.

Her father changed his ways too late, and it doesn't look like her mother is ever going to. Steph…maybe she can't be Spoiler forever, but she knows she needs her own life.

She isn't going to get it at 'home.'

A part-time job working after school and on weekends as a waitress only pays for a really crappy apartment, but she's learning how to make better tips (wear short skirts, flirt with single customers, always smile at the guys who pinches her cheeks – even the lower set) and staying on her feet carrying heavy trays for that many hours is, at least, building up her endurance.

Plus, one night she comes home (for certain values of the word 'home,' none of which Steph has ever really gotten to use before) to find that Robin has installed a very new, high-tech security system which is probably worth more than she pays in rent for an entire year. Steph resolves to send Robin a thank you note via Cass.

Then she changes the password from _eggplant _to _hope_ and wonders if it's too obvious.

The next week Steph finds out that she's pregnant, and decides that hope is all she has left. Hope that the future will be better, and that she can make something of it. She'd been thinking vaguely of trying for her GED at the end of the school year, but now it's a certainty. She can't go to school and make enough money to take care of herself **and** a baby.

She also can't fight crime while she's pregnant. Spoiler avoids the rooftops, and Steph takes on later shifts, studying for the GED whenever she has a spare moment. The spare moments are spaced around her panicking tries to juggle her meager budget to pay for the prenatal vitamins Dr. Leslie at the free clinic advises her to take, and start saving up money for the kid's college fund.

Her parents had never made any such preparations for her.

Steph briefly thinks of giving the baby up for adoption; maybe he or she would have a better home with someone with money, or a husband, or even just a better set of role models for parents.

But this baby is hers, and other than Spoiler (who she created because of her dad) or her homeopathic remedies for everything from headaches to pimples (that she uses because she doesn't want to become like her mother), it's the only thing that really is.

The next time Cass shows up, Steph is thankful that she doesn't have to actually **tell** Cass any of it. Cass just sits down beside her on the roof, as if Batgirl sits with mopey blonde girls in jeans and tanktops (that don't fit right anymore) everyday.

And Cass hugs her. She doesn't feel like crying for the first time in weeks, and it isn't just the hormones leveling off. Cass is there, and Robin will probably help, too, and Oracle definitely has bugs **somewhere** in her crappy apartment, so her kid would be safer there than anyone in that part of town ever had been.

That's when Steph knows it really will be okay.

* * *

THE END


	3. Jason: Dividing Line

**Dividing Line**

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Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Superboy Prime punching the timestream brought Jason back to life the first time. What happened to Red Hood **this** time?

* * *

The first sign that things are changing goes almost completely unnoticed by Jason. He's been angry for so long – at Bruce, at the Joker, at **himself** – that when he finally stops being angry, it's such a relief that he bypasses kneecapping two mooks who were robbing a five-and-dime, and doesn't even notice until he arrives at his 'nest' for the night and realizes that his gauntlets aren't covered in blood like they usually are after he's been out all night.

Jason doesn't even have time for the shock to register before his memories start slipping from his mental grasp, and he can't even remember why he was angry in the first place. Then he does, and almost flinches as his memories start rewriting themselves in his head, pain and pleasure and love and hate all swirled together and none of it making any sense.

Things happen faster after that, until Jason finds himself wandering around the cemetery where he's buried with no recollection of how, or better yet, **why** he's there. He stands in front of his grave and wonders why he doesn't feel sad. Just…depressed. Apathetic, as if all the anger has been drained out of him and replaced with acceptance. He's always had a rather cynical, dark, sarcastic edge to him, but this much morbidity is really beyond the pale.

Jason knows he's changed; he's just not sure how. He shivers inside his T-shirt and jeans, and wishes for his Robin costume, even though his legs would be bare. Then, almost of their own accord, his eyes drift across the night-dark lawn to the Waynes' double headstone.

He knows what he has to do.

As light dawns over the darkest, grimiest city in America, Jason heads towards the Manor. He doesn't know what's happened him, but he knows who can help him deal with the changes.

Robin needs Batman, after all.

* * *

THE END


	4. Steph: Was And Is

**Was And Is**

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Rating: PG  
Summary: Jason was, Steph is, and Bruce is going to do things right this time.

**

* * *

**

Batman had always been a creature of habit, but certain circumstances had forced him to admit that maybe some habits needed to be…upgraded. After the incident with Prometheus, Batman had Oracle shore up the defenses on the Batcave's computer. The only things accessible with a level one access code (which he hadn't used since any of the Robins were just starting out) were profiles on the Gotham Rogues, and his own, personalized, nutrition plan.

When Tim had to quit being Robin, Bruce…for once in his life, he had no clue how to proceed. He'd…grown used to working with a partner, and Cassandra…well, Cassandra was as much of a loner as he was. But there were no protocols for Robins. He'd found Dick by unlucky accident, Jason by mutual mistake; Tim had found him on purpose.

Then, Stephanie Brown, 'The Spoiler' showed up in his Cave with a makeshift Robin costume. Determinedly hopeful, with as much fire as any bird that had ever flown by his side.

The costume wasn't bad, for something homemade on a teenager's allowance, though it could stand some more armor. And…Tim was the one who said that Batman needed a Robin.

Hopefully Tim would remember that when he saw the newest Robin on the news.

Stephanie was…a different sort of Robin. Like Jason, she loved the fight, and loved learning new ways of 'kicking ass and taking names.' Also, like Jason, she thought she was ready before she really was, and she had a problem following orders.

Bruce swore not to make the same mistakes with her that he did with Jason. And that included letting her patrol alone before she started following all of his orders.

Batman made sure to teach her the difference between disabling and lethal blows. He was gratified to note that she seemed leery of practicing the lethal ones at all.

The night they went up against Zsasz, Bruce was proud to note that her favored roundhouse right to his face hit square on his jaw, knocking him out, instead of anywhere near his broken nose bones, which could have been shoved up into his brain, instantly killing him.

Just when Bruce was thinking he should upgrade Stephanie's access to the Crays, Tim's father was attacked. Robin got to him in time to stop the bleeding and call the ambulance, but it was clear that the road to recovery would be long for Jack Drake.

A part of Bruce had always harbored a hope that Tim would come back to him. But it seemed that, even if that happened, in the meantime Stephanie was going to become a permanent part of the fold.

Like Barbara had. Like Huntress was.

Spoiler, now Robin, would.

* * *

THE END


	5. Jason: Needs Must

**Needs Must**

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Rating: PG  
Summary: No Man's Land happens earlier, and stops Jason from looking for his mother.

**

* * *

**

Jason had never really given much thought to his parentage. His father was a deadbeat, and his mother was just dead.

Then he found out that while his father was his father, his mother wasn't his mother. His mother was Sheila Haywood, and she was still alive.

Jason had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that. She'd given him up for adoption either because she didn't think she could take care of him – which, considering that she'd lived in the same neighborhood as he had, was more likely than not – or because she didn't want him – which Jason tried not to think was true.

He didn't know where she was, but she was out there. Alive. Family, his family, that was alive. Jason didn't even know if he wanted to meet her, or what he'd say to her if he did meet her, but while he tried to figure that out, he might as well practice those detective skills Bruce was always trying to beat into his head and look for her.

If only Babs had been around more often, then the search would have gone faster. Computers really weren't his thing. Busting heads was.

It took him over three months, but he finally found a lead on her. She was a doctor, and was doing charity work over in Europe, how's about that? He was just getting ready to try and make up his mind about whether or not to contact her when he felt the first tremors.

By the time he got out of the Cave, nothing **but** the Cave was left standing. The earthquake had knocked down Wayne Manor, and from what Jason could see in the fading daylight, most of Gotham City.

His mother was doing okay, but Gotham…Gotham needed Batman. And Batman would need his Robin.

He wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

THE END


	6. Steph: Playing To Win

**Playing To Win**

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Rating: PG-13  
Summary: It isn't a game. But that doesn't mean Steph can't win.  
Notes: AU from the end of _War Games_.

* * *

It wasn't a game.

But that didn't mean she had to lose. She was going to win.

With those thoughts in her mind, Steph carefully aimed the gun, and when Black Mask's focus switched, she hit him with her patented uppercut.

Knocked him out cold.

Cold…she was so cold. The gun trembled in her hand, and fell to the floor. Her last waking thought, muddled by the pain and the last dregs of adrenaline leaving her body, was to kick it away, so he couldn't use it if he woke up.

* * *

When she woke up, Batman was there. And his cowl – his mask – was off.

Steph's vision was too fuzzy to really make out his features, but he looked familiar…

"Di' you catsh 'im?" Steph slurred out through what few of her teeth were left, eyelids falling closed. She absently noted the feeling of bandages covering her face, and vaguely recognized the feelings of drugs coursing through her system; morphine or something else she'd had during her delivery. It probably explained why even though she hurt, she didn't feel like she was dying.

At least, not until she thought about what Black Mask had done to her. She almost wished he hadn't been so crippled he'd had to use…implements. It might have hurt her less.

But he had, and he had, and she was. So she'd deal.

"Yes," Batman said.

"Good," Steph said, and closed her eyes.

* * *

It was a week before Steph found out that Batman was Bruce Wayne. It was only when Tim came by, and referred to him as 'Bruce' that it clicked.

Steph had no idea what it meant. Batman – Bruce – hadn't been back to see her at Leslie's clinic since he'd brought her in. And she couldn't really blame him. He had to have figured out that it was all her fault that Gotham was in the midst of the worst conflagration it had seen since No Man's Land.

But why would Batman have shown her his face? Why would be have let Tim know it was okay to tell her his name?

She wasn't good enough to be Robin, right? Hell, she'd barely been able to make it as Spoiler.

And she wasn't sure if she'd go back to it after she healed from this – if she was even able to. She didn't want to think that Black Mask had won; that he'd taken her out of the game. But on the other hand…she didn't want to end up dead, either.

If she had training… But even if she had all the training that Tim had, that didn't guarantee anything. Not if that case holding a Robin uniform – one that wasn't Tim's, and that Nightwing had never worn – was anything to go by.

* * *

Cass was the one to help her home. Her mother already knew Tim, but she also thought that they'd broken up. Not that they had, but she'd had to tell her mom something while Tim was grounded.

Her mom seemed a bit leery of Cass, but that could have just been because she was so worried about her. Steph had never seen her mom that stressed and strung out unless she was…strung out. Strung out and needing a fix.

It was kind of nice, seeing her mom's concern.

What was even nicer was when Tim came by to visit that evening…in his Robin suit. She'd always known that Tim belonged in it, in a way she never had. She wasn't great with following orders, or giving them. She couldn't be a sidekick that would eventually grow into a mentor. She could barely handle partnering either Tim or Cass on patrol.

But being there for both of them to talk to once patrol was over was something she could do even from her sickbed.

* * *

One week after the casts on her arms came off, Bruce Wayne dropped by her house. On the one day that her mother worked the nightshift, and Steph was alone in the house.

He didn't say much, other than, "Maybe I was a bit hasty…sometimes it's justifiable to break the rules," and, "I should have given you more training before I let you out on the streets."

She didn't need Tim to tell her that that was as close to an apology and absolution as she was going to get from Batman. Even with the Bat staring her down, she breathed a bit easier.

When Bruce left, Steph found a folder on her desk. It contained bits and pieces of a case that someone was working on: Batman or Oracle, possibly even Tim. It had that economy of emotion and richness of detail that she'd come to expect from the detectives amongst them.

Steph wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, but she knew what was what. She couldn't kick ass or bust heads, but she could still exercise her mind. And this was another test that Batman wanted to see if she'd pass.

She spent her free moments, of which there were quite a few, working on the case notes, ones that concerned an assassination in Paris several years previously. Steph read the reports over and over, trying to glean a clue here, a connection there; something that would tell her what was going on. It took her three hours to figure out who did it; it took her three days to figure out why Batman would have held onto those particular reports.

Steph wracked her brain for every iota of information she'd ever heard about Lady Shiva, and pointedly did not ask either Tim or Cass about her. In the end, she felt she'd been able to come up with more concrete than circumstantial evidence, even if she couldn't prove it.

She went to sleep on Friday with the finished folder lying by her bed. She woke up on Saturday to two new folders, and a bat-shaped note that said _Good work, Stephanie_.

After that, every week a new packet would arrive on her windowsill. Sometimes it was case notes, sometimes it was supervillain dossiers; once it was exercise regimens designed to be incorporated into her physical therapy for her newly-healed legs.

On the day she sent in the paperwork to take her GED – no way she'd be able to attend high school for awhile – the folder contained college brochures and scholarship applications.

Steph considered it a point of pride to throw away the Wayne Foundation ones.

* * *

It was eight months after the gang wars swept Gotham, and two weeks after Steph finally got a clean bill of health from Doctor Thompkins, when she finally came to a decision about her life.

She could start training again, though it would take at least another eight months before she was street-ready, or…well, she was finally realizing that she had options for her future. Good ones, and ones that didn't involve spandex and Kevlar.

She'd become Spoiler to stop her dad. It had evolved, somewhere along the way, into wanting to make Gotham better for kids like her, so no more little girls grew up with dads that spent more time breaking the law than fixing their kids' broken bikes. She could do that without wearing Kevlar.

All she needed was a diploma from Hudson U. She could be a teacher, or a social worker, or maybe even a doctor. And she could help everyone in Gotham City.

Steph wasn't Robin. And if she went back to crime-fighting, it probably wouldn't be as Spoiler.

But she wasn't out of the game. Not by a longshot.

* * *

THE END


	7. Jason: Unhooded

**Unhooded**

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Rating: PG  
Summary: Red Hood saves Jason Todd.

**

* * *

**

"Are you sure?" the kid asked him, and Red Hood had to swallow down a lump at the sight of it. Had he ever been that young? That naïve? That…hell, that trusting?

Only five minute's worth of interrogation, and Robin was ready to believe him being from the future. It worked to his advantage, sure, but…

"Yeah, Jay; I'm sure," he said, wishing for even the scant cover of the mask he usually wore under his hood. What must have been in his eyes…

Robin set his chin and nodded. "Okay. I'll tell…him."

"Good." Jason forced a smile. "Now get back out there; Gotham needs a Robin."

The salute the kid sent him was mocking, like the smile on his face, but he did as ordered. Robin swung away into the night, no doubt boggled about the events of the past half-hour, but happy to be flying once more, in the not-so-friendly skies.

Jason stood on the rooftop and watched as his arm disappeared, reminding him of _Back to the Future_. He knew that once he irrevocably changed his **own** future he'd start ceasing to exist.

That's why he'd killed the Joker **first**. Before going to talk to his younger self.

* * *

THE END


	8. Steph: The Secret To Friendship

**The Secret To Friendship**

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Rating: PG  
Summary: Dinah may not have wanted a sidekick, but she still wants Steph to stick around.

**

* * *

**

Dinah Lance may have never wanted a sidekick, but the Boy Wonder wasn't the only one who quickly developed a bad case of the Stephs. Repeated exposure to a blonde teenager ready, willing, and able to learn everything Black Canary had to teach eventually softened Dinah to Steph. Soon, Spoiler was out fighting crime with Black Canary nearly every night (barring Dinah having gotten roped into something with the JLA or the JSA, or Steph having homework).

Of course, eventually Batman heard about her, but by then, Dinah was working for Oracle as part of her 'Birds of Prey' and Steph had sort of been accepted as an adjunct or…something. She had the comm earrings and necklace set, anyway, and had done some scouting and some stakeouts and other stuff for the mysterious green-masked lady. She was sure Oracle was a woman; not even Superman (or so she'd heard) was quite **that** capable of snarking off at Batman and getting him to back down.

And even if Steph was pretty sure that Oracle thought she was just playing dress-up, at least the cyber-babe never said so. To her, anyway; one night, a few months after Steph got her new bird-themed jewelry, Dinah came home in a really foul mood, fouler than even when she and her Arrow ex ran into something situation where one or the other of them thought maybe they shouldn't be exes anymore.

Steph always got out the ice cream when that happened, and prepared herself for listening to Dinah kvetch, while wondering when Robin would **finally** ask her out so that when he pissed her off enough **she** could bitch about boys to **her**. She got out the ice cream again, but wasn't surprised when Dinah waved it off and said she needed to work out, and would she like to spar?

That was when Steph knew she was really Dinah's partner, and not her sidekick. She got pinned to the mats four out of six times, but Dinah told her what Oracle had said. Heavily edited, probably, but apparently their 'boss' had 'reservations' about Steph's 'commitment' to 'The Mission.'

When Steph said that it sounded like Oracle had been taking a page out of Batman's book, Dinah had laughed so hard she fell on her (extremely muscular and damn enviable even for someone older than her mother) ass.

Apparently, Dinah had told Oracle the same thing. Forget their 'family'; only real friends knew each other like that.

Steph couldn't help but grin; Black Canary and Spoiler had a nice ring to it. Almost like Batman and Robin, but with less emo brooding and more fun fighting.

Yeah, as long they listened to and learned from each other, their friendship would get them through anything.

* * *

THE END


	9. Jason: Follow The Leader

**Follow The Leader**

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Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Batman doesn't want Spoiler around; Jason, formerly Red Hood, feels differently.

* * *

Her name's Spoiler, not Batgirl or even Robin, but Jason can tell she's one of them. One of them despite how Batman keeps telling her to get lost.

He's good at that.

She doesn't have much training, but she throws a mean roundhouse right, and Jason gets a flicker of déjà vu whenever he catches her take someone down with a heel-kick.

She's blonde, busty, and above all, **female**, but damn she reminds him of himself. Before…well, before.

He watches for almost a year, and Batman still doesn't let her in. But then, he already has a Batgirl, and a Robin; who else does he need? No one, apparently, not even them. And it's only a handful of times when he even asks Oracle for backup from the Birds of Prey – and Jason can't believe Babs named them that, after one throwaway little comment he made in the midst of flirting with her the first time they worked together. But then, back then, she was Batgirl, and he was Robin. Then the Joker took them both out of the game.

Jason shakes off memories of the past and creeps across the roof, getting his purple-clad mark in sight. Batman, of course, is hiding in the shadows once again as he berates her for being foolish enough to take down two muggers in his town.

He keeps telling Spoiler to quit, just like he did with Huntress. Huntress eventually gave up, and went to work for the Birds, but Spoiler…she's got determination and persistence on her side, even if she has very little else. She tells Batman to shove it, and Jason fancies the big man actually looks a little impressed by her cheek.

And Spoiler does remind Jason of…himself. Himself in better days gone by.

That's when he makes the decision.

It takes a while to find her when she isn't out with either the imposter or the new ninja Batgirl, but he finally does. She doesn't hear him coming, but when he drops down in front of her, she's quick to drop into a defensive stance.

"Hey, no worries; I just wanna talk," he tells her. He doesn't put both hands up empty, but he does take one off his knives, and holds the other in a loose grip on his helmet.

She looks hesitant, but finally says, "What do you want?"

"To work with you," Jason says, because he's planned this. He can't tell her that he wants her to work for him – A) she's only a year or so younger than him and B) she'd tell him to shove it.

The secret C) is that he misses having a partner.

Her cowl is up, so he can't see her eyes, but he'd bet she's blinking. "Why? Batman thinks I'm not good enough to work here–" and she sounds angry about that; good girl, "–and who are you, anyway?"

"I used to be Robin," Jason tells her, forging the other questions.

Her shocked silence says it all. Then, slowly, she removes the cowl, and then her mask, staring at him with wide blue eyes. "But…I thought…Nightwing…" She isn't speechless, but she can't put a sentence together. This amuses him, for some reason; it pleases him even more to see she's still half in a ready stance.

"I was after him," Jason cuts in. "But before…the new one."

She chews on that for a moment, before finally turning to him decisively. "What name do you go by now?"

Jason grins, sharp enough to draw blood on his own lip, and sheathes the knife. "Renegade." Red Hood was a name for another time, even if that time wasn't so long ago. And she might have heard of him, then, and it would be difficult to win her trust if she knew he'd killed indiscriminately.

So he'd ripped off Nightwing's costume, only red instead of blue, and with a full cowl.

She nods. "I'm Spoiler. So…how do you– how were you thinking we'd do this?" She's not quite looking at him for direction, but seems willing to follow his lead.

A shout down the street is perfectly-timed, and Jason slips on the helmet. "How about we go kick some ass?"

Spoiler's grin isn't nearly as sharp, but it's full of glee at the upcoming violence all the same. "Let's."

* * *

THE END


	10. Steph: And So It Began

**And So It Began**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Babs is grounded, permanently, but Stephanie holds a whole world of possibilities. For her and for Robin.

* * *

Steph didn't even really know her, but no one could get into gymnastics without hearing about Barbara Gordon, three-time state champion. So when the nightly news showed that the Joker had gotten out again, and this time he'd shot Commissioner Gordon **and** his daughter, well, Steph thought she should visit her.

Gymnastics had had a bigger impact on her life than either of her parents.

So, armed with a scraggly bouquet of daises and some orangeish trumpet-like flowers from the neighborhood excuse for a park, Steph showed up at Wayne Memorial one Saturday morning without a clue what she was going to say aside from 'Get Well Soon.'

When she said it, Barbara just snorted. "Not fucking likely, kid."

She bristled, and thought about arguing the 'kid' remark, but she saw how hollow Barbara's eyes were, and what did she mean? "What do you mean?" she asked, dropping down to sit on the edge of Barbara's bed.

Barbara was quiet for long moments, long enough for Steph to start wondering if she was ever going to get an answer, or if Barbara just wanted her to lean. Finally, Barbara took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself, and said, "I'm never going to walk again. Ever."

"I'm sorry," Steph managed to say at last, because what else **could** she say? Barbara was a gymnast – was, literally – and now she wasn't anymore, could never be again.

"Yeah, me too," Barbara said, and her laugh was painful, but not painful enough to distract Steph from the tears in her eyes, and Steph had to hug her.

It took a while, but Barbara hugged her back. And if she cried a bit on Steph's shoulder, well, Steph could keep a secret.

* * *

Steph started coming to visit Barbara after school. Not every day, but whenever she got a chance. They'd talk about things; school, how boys of any age were stupid, the differences between having a druggie lush for a mother versus no mother at all.

Steph let Barbara bring up anything having to do with gymnastics or her father. When she finally mentioned Jim Gordon's recovery, Steph smiled. She didn't feel like she should mention that her father was probably going to get out of Blackgate again soon; what was the point?

Then Babs asked, "So, what about your dad?"

Steph shrugged unconcernedly and looked away. "He's a crook. Calls himself the Cluemaster. He's currently up the river." She'd long ago gotten over the resigned disgust she felt with her father, but she never liked how people acted when they found out.

Barbara looked at her, and the look in her eyes…Steph didn't recognize it. But that meant it wasn't pity or revulsion, so she didn't worry much. "You don't like it, do you?"

Snorting, Steph folded her arms over her chest. "No fucking shit."

Babs looked at her for a minute, as if sizing her up. "If you could do something about it, would you?"

Steph frowned. "Like what?"

* * *

That was how it all began.

"You ready?" Oracle said in her ear, that mechanized voice that to Steph would always sound like Babs when she was pissed.

"Yeah," Steph replied.

"Then fly, Batgirl." A pause, then Babs said, "And, if you think you're up for it, he's at 4th and Mulberry."

"I'm up for anything tonight, Oracle." Steph grinned, shot out her line, and took off.

She landed in a crouch on the administration building of the Mulberry Treetrops apartment complex, looking for him. She didn't see him, but she didn't feel like she was alone.

"And who are you supposed to be?" If Steph hadn't been warned, she probably would have done something supremely silly and girly, like scream when he dropped down in front of her, larger than life.

Instead, she just smirked, put her hands on her hips, and took a good long look at him. He looked even dorkier than she'd pictured, those green booties and the man-panties; the body that filled out the uniform wasn't a little boy, though even without the heels on the boots, she was at least two inches taller than him. "I'm Batgirl…Robin."

* * *

**Epilogue **

* * *

Tim continues taking his pictures. One night he sees Spoiler, and decides to follow her as well. One night he sees her being overwhelmed by thugs, and throws rocks to distract them, and thus 'rescues' her. She decides he'd 'make a cute sidekick' and so they work together, with him as her 'Oracle' via short-range radios.

No Man's Land happens much the same, only Tim hooks up with Steph during it, and makes sure she's okay. On his way out, back to his parents, he runs into Cass. (By this time, Barbara has retired from being Batgirl, which was what she was planning on right before she got shot. That obviously never happened here, since the Joker is dead. She's become Oracle, however, an idea given form after she sees how clueless Jason is about hacking, and about how often Steph uses her comm on patrol). Cass stays with Tim and family for a few weeks (before ending up with Babs), but she keeps sneaking out at night to go help Spoiler. Eventually, Spoiler and Cass (now called Shadow, because she shadows Spoiler and hides in them as well) run into Robin.

And a new generation of Bats is born.

Soon after, Jason gets fired a la Dick, and becomes Renegade (since Flamebird was already taken, and dude, Jason thinks, gay much?). Tim is their Oracle, going by…uh…well, 'The Shadow' knows everything, so he goes by that, piping information directly into Cass' ear so it appears as if she knows everything, thus keeping his secret identity.

Dick feels a little jealous, but Jason points out that he still has the Titans. Not the Teen Titans, however, as the third version forms from Young Justice, only Steph and Jason were members, and now they and Cass drive Gar and Vic crazy because they're technically not affiliated with any 'Clan' outside of the Birds of Prey. Finally Vic, desperate, asks Oracle for help, and she sends Tim (who works with/for her, mostly concentrating on solo heroes and, of course, his Bats) in to get some socialization, keep **his** team in line. It works, sort of.


	11. Jason: Do Not Yield

**Do Not Yield**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: After Garzonas, Bruce seeks professional help for Jason – Ma and Pa Kent.

**

* * *

**

Bruce didn't really think that Jason had killed Garzonas. But he knew, he just **knew** in his gut, that Jason had wanted to.

And if Garzonas fell, Jason might not have done all in his power to save him – or anything in his power.

Alfred couldn't get through to the boy. Bruce had never been one for…emotional situations. He still had never actually talked about his parents' murder, in any depth.

Bruce didn't know what to do, so he did what he always did when sticky situations came up – he asked Alfred for advice.

Jason was a city kid, born and bred, through and through. He **hated** the idea of going to Kansas, to stay on a farm. But the Kents…there had been so many times that Bruce had been coerced into dinner with them – by Clark, of course – and…it had felt like home.

Trust the Boy Scout to be willing to share even his parents.

He only planned to leave Jason out there until he could figure out what to really do with him. Bruce had to get Jason's head on straight. It didn't help that Jason reminded him so much of himself at that age; angry at the world, and wanting to lash out. However, he'd had Alfred, and his own personal code of not killing, even then, and Jason…Jason had had no stable influence in his life until Batman had found him, and Bruce could admit (if only to himself) that he wasn't very stable.

Jason was a good boy. He could be a great Robin, just as great as Dick – though obviously not as good an acrobat – but without putting intense study into the casefiles, he probably would not be a great detective. But above and beyond that, he was Bruce's son, and Bruce had to try and help him.

The longer Jason stayed on the Kent farm, the more…settled he became. He still didn't like it, however, and Bruce relented enough to grant him weekends away from 'exile.' Jason was less angry, but the anger was still **there**, simmering below the surface, rage ready to boil up and over. He needed therapy, most likely, but Bruce didn't want to send him to a regular psychiatrist, where he couldn't talk about being Robin, and being Batman's partner.

J'onn was the one to approach him, but Bruce was never more thankful. Especially when, on one of his weekends in Gotham, Jason swung by his old neighborhood, found a friend of his parent's who had a box of their things, and discovered his birth certificate.

And his **first** adoption certificate. Things got complicated, and Jason got even angrier. Bruce had to replace some of the Kents' furniture, but of course, Jason never hurt the Kents. He even apologized, after the fact, for breaking the table.

The Kents understood about superpowered teenagers actually breaking things, and were much more forgiving than any two people past middle age had a right to be.

Bruce put everything he had into tracking down Jason's 'real' mother. Then he had to put everything he had into not breaking a table himself when he found out that the Joker had somehow blackmailed her into working for him.

And when Sheila Haywood died in a bombing that also took out the Joker, he put everything he had into trying to console Jason. Jason took more solace from the fact that the Joker was dead – he'd become very attached to Barbara, if not as much as Dick had – than any platitudes Bruce could give him.

The anger seemed to die down to embers, so Bruce took him back to Gotham. He tried to teach him more about detective work than fighting, more about justice than retribution.

Jason was the one who held him together when Superman died, and he insisted on going to visit the Kents at least once a month. When the young clone, Superboy, showed up, Jason was the one who convinced the Kents to meet him.

Once he had a friend in Smallville, one who disliked it as much as he had, Jason got to like the farm a lot more.

The anger was outweighed by friendship now. And if Bruce didn't entirely approve of Conner Lane Kent, or Superboy, well, then he'd just have to put everything he had into making sure that Luthor hadn't done something to the boy, to Clark's…successor.

Clark's son.

Bruce breathed a (momentary) sigh of relief, and made an uncharacteristic prayer for the future.

* * *

THE END


	12. Steph: Next Best Thing

**Next Best Thing**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Second Robins. Different histories, similar futures. And One True Steph is born.

* * *

It all started when she was ten years old, and snuck out to follow her father to his nightly 'meeting'. She saw Boss Zucco – though what he was boss of besides her dad and some other mooks, she didn't know; he certainly wasn't boss of Gotham – get taken down by the Bat.

And she found one of his sharp throwing things. The Bat was there, he threw those sharp bat-knife things, and then he was gone, almost before she got a good look at him.

When he left, her dad and all the other mooks were knocked out, and Boss Zucco was on his way to the pen.

Normally she would have been cheering: her dad was going back to jail, and wouldn't bother her and her mom anymore. She wouldn't have to be caught between loving him for being who he was, and loathing him for doing what he did. But her mom…her mom wasn't doing so good. She'd smoked too many cigarettes, or something, and now she had cancer.

And with her dad in Blackgate, pretty soon Stephanie Brown would be a veritable orphan.

That's when Stephanie scrapped all her half-assed plans to be Spoiler, the Cluemaster's sidekick, and started planning on being Batman's partner. There was already a Bat**girl** – and what she wouldn't give to have hair that bright shade of red – but she hadn't seen Robin around for a while. A long while. Since before her dad had gotten arrested the last time.

So, using her mom's old – and never used, as far as she could tell, except to patch their already second-hand and otherwise worn clothes – sewing machine, Steph made herself a Robin suit. It looked as much like the old one as she could make it, except for two things:

One, it had no green or yellow. She had some gymnastics training, but she wasn't nearly as good as her idol, former Gotham City champ Barbara Gordon. Making herself a walking – or flying – target would quickly get her killed.

And two…she wanted pants. Maybe a skirt.

But definitely pants.

Even without the brighter colors, a few weeks darting across rooftops should get Batman to notice her.

And if he didn't, maybe she'd just steal the tires off the Batmobile. Not exactly the best start to a crime-fighting career, but the next best thing she could think of.

That night, she slept with the bat-knife under her pillow and dreamed of flying through the Gotham nights with Batman.


	13. Jason: Undertow

**Undertow**

* * *

Rating: G  
Summary: When the Crisis tried to replace Jay, what if he held on?

* * *

There's a wave coming over him. He doesn't know what it is, but it's sweeping him away. Jason doesn't know what it is, but he's going to be gone, and something else, some**one** else, will take his place.

It will have his name and his face, but not his history.

And…and that's not acceptable. Not for him, not for Robin, not for– not for **Bruce**. Bruce would never understand, not unless he gets rewritten too, and Jason–

Jason can't imagine a world where Bruce isn't Batman, the man who protects all of Gotham city.

The wave washes over him, and even as he **knows**, to the very depths of his being that he isn't moving at all, Jason struggles against it and swims towards the surface. He's not going to be washed away. He's lost so much already: his parents, his Circus…

He won't lose his past. He won't lose his present. He won't lose his **life**.

He won't let Bruce lose him. Batman…Batman needs Robin.

So Jason fights, and the wave fights back, threatening to drown him, but Jason fights more, and breathes, and hopes, and prays.

The wave passes, and he rides it out until it's gone. Standing alone in the middle of the Cave, the surreal feeling that an eternity passed in the blink of one second, Jason Todd Wayne, last of the Flying Todds, wonders if he has low blood sugar. That would account for the momentary sense of vertigo.

Then he decides that, whether he does or not, it's a great excuse to get Alfred to let him have a cookie before dinner.

Maybe two.

* * *

THE END


	14. Steph: A Spoiler For Every Flame

**A Spoiler For Every Flame**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Bette Kane and Stephanie Brown. Both have Batboys telling them they should quit the hero biz. Both are determined to prove them wrong.

* * *

…_I just don't think you're cut out to play hero._

Bette couldn't believe that Nightwing would say those things to her. **Play** hero? She wasn't good enough? **Quit**?

Like hell she would. She'd show him.

But first she had to save Gar.

Once that was done, though, high on the adrenaline of winning (for once, outside a tennis court), Bette let her rage cool. It wasn't until a few months after she'd moved in with Matt and Gar that she figured out **how **she was going to prove Nightwing wrong. She'd go to Gotham, fight crime there, put away some of the bigger bad guys, like maybe Two-Face or the Joker – Nightwing seemed to dislike them most – and then act like it was no big thing when he next saw her, because she was a superhero, and didn't she do those things all the time?

That would show him.

Once Bette got to Gotham, however…she'd worked there before, but during the **day**. It was so dark and gloomy and **creepy**. Also, since the reconstruction after No Man's Land, the landmarks had changed so much that she was lost, even perched on top of the WayneCorp building.

"Looking for someone?" a voice came from the dark, and Bette barely kept herself from jumping. It wasn't Nightwing, though, or even Robin; the voice was female.

Bette thought it was Batgirl until she turned around and saw a girl in a purple suit – no, more of an eggplant, not the deep indigo of Catwoman's costume – with a cowl and cape.

"Er…not really. But, um, sort of?" Bette said, and cringed at herself. She should be more assertive. Normally she was, but she didn't even know if this kid – was she a kid? She was about her height, so they might be the same age… – was a hero or not. Nightwing had never mentioned her.

Then again, Nightwing never chitchatted with her, and anyway, maybe he though that Miss Eggplant wasn't good enough to be a hero either.

Miss Eggplant laughed lightly and pulled up her mask. "I'm Spoiler," she said. "Or Steph, take your pick."

"Flamebird," Bette said, and held out her hand to shake. "Or Bette."

"So what brings you to Gotham?" Steph asked, and the inquisitiveness in her eye was clear even in the shadows. The shadows were in her eyes, too, and Better noticed that she looked…not tired, but worn out. Worn down.

"I wanted to take down a really big Gotham Rogue so Nightwing would quit telling me that I should quit being a superhero," Bette said, because she couldn't really think of an explanation that wasn't the truth.

Steph's laugh sounded somewhat broken. "I don't…think…that'll work," she gasped out between laughs.

Bette pouted. "I could do it," she said, anger boiling up inside her.

"Yeah, but I did the same thing, and Batman still tells me to stay off **his** streets, so…" Her laughter finally winded down, and Steph's expression hardened.

"Nightwing's nicer than Batman," Bette told her, even thought half of her didn't believe it. Nightwing grew more and more like Batman everyday, and was only rarely the carefree young man she remembered from her Titans' days.

"Maybe you'll manage it then," Spoiler said with a shrug. She jumped up on the edge of the roof, and made as if to leave, readying her jumpline.

Bette didn't know why she did what she did next; it just felt like the right thing to do. "Hey, wait!"

Steph twisted back around to face her, though her feet were still poised for flight. "Yeah?"

"Maybe we could work together?"

Steph hopped down onto the roof again and moved towards her. "You planning to stick around Gotham long?"

Bette blushed. "Well, I'm going to be coming down here for a while, y'know, until I catch someone to show up Nightwing, but I've actually got a place in Hollywood. But I was thinking… Me and Gar Logan, y'know, Beast Boy? We were gonna start up Titans' West. Maybe you could join."

Steph shook her head, laughing under her breath. "I live here, and I don't have superspeed or anything; how would I get to California?"

Bette was only momentarily stumped. "You wouldn't have to. We don't have to have face to face meetings; we could conference call!" And she was sure a little wheedling would convince Roy to let her use the Titans' JLA transporter occasionally. She could bribe him with offers to baby-sit.

"But then how would we be a team?" Steph asked, frowning.

"We'd help each other out when we needed it. Like, if Gemini broke out of prison, I could call you in to help, and if, uh…the Riddler broke out of Arkham, Gar or I could come here!" Bette was practically bouncing with excitement. Maybe, if she could get enough superheroes to agree, without moving to California, they could build a network! She could try for Risk next, maybe, or maybe Empress from the disbanded Young Justice.

"I think Batman would have the Riddler pretty sewn up," Steph told her, but she was smiling. "But sure, you need something, give me a call. Um, I just don't exactly have a phone with this get-up." She gestured to her suit.

Bette brushed that off. "Not a problem!" she chirped. "I'll get you a Titans' communicator." Which actually weren't that hard to get; Cyborg had a surplus, because they got damaged in battle so often.

Steph's grin was so bright it reminded her of Dick's, back when he'd been Robin. Bette thought she'd like working with Steph. "Really? Cool."

Bette found herself grinning back. Really cool summed it up.


	15. Jason: Reasons Why I Cry

**Reasons Why I Cry**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Bruce still won't kill the Joker. But he finds the right words to say to Jason this time.  
Notes: AU of this scene – _community .livejournal .com /scans(underscore)daily /1477121__ .html _– in Batman #650.

* * *

"Why…why on God's Earth is **he** still alive?" Jason demands with thinly-veiled rage, voice filled with pain.

And the thing is, no matter that Bruce won't even admit it to himself…he has asked himself the same thing everyday. Every night. Every moment since Jason's death. What makes the Joker, whose insanity is the only thing keeping him from getting the death penalty, worthy of life, when he's taken it from so many more deserving people?

Nothing. But the thin thread by which Batman holds onto his 'antiquated morals' is what keeps him from taking true justice into his hands.

The next few minutes pass in a blur, Joker spouting his usual insane thoughts despite being only half-aware of the world, Bruce detailing Batman's secret dreams about torturing the Joker, inflicting only a **fraction** of the pain on his arch-nemesis that the crazy clown has caused him and his in this life.

But Bruce knows, once he lets himself fall…it'd be too damn easy to keep going. And he isn't sure he's strong enough to resist.

"He took me away from you," Jason says, and Batman barely hides the flinch. The Joker took away Jason, he took Batgirl's legs, he took away Jim's wife… He took away so many people from their families, or from lonely lives before they could build families.

He knows the Joker deserves to die. He just doesn't think he's strong enough to kill him, and hold onto anything resembling sanity. And an insane Batman would be worse than the Joker.

Jason throws the gun at him, and while Bruce is still protesting that he won't – secretly thinking that he **can't** – and says, "This is it. This is the time you decide." His scowl is razor-sharp and looks like it hurts Jason more than Bruce. "If you won't kill this psychotic piece of filth…" He cocks the gun, releases the safety, and stares Batman straight in the eye, "…then I **will**."

It's hard enough to look Jason back in the eye while hearing those damning words, but they don't stop there. "You want to stop me? You're going to have to kill me."

Bruce stands there helplessly, the gun in one hand. "Stop this. Enough. You know I won't…" Can't, he **can't**…

"All you've got is a headshot. I'm going to blow his addled, deranged brains out – and if you want to stop it…" Bruce stood, horrified, watching a tear trickled from Jason's one visible eye, "…you're going to have to shoot **me**. Right in my **face**."

Batman didn't even hear what the Joker said for the blood roaring in his ears. "Stop this…" he pleaded.

"It's him or me," Jason declared. "You have to decide."

"Please, don't…" Bruce motioned his dry lips, though swallowing three times wasn't enough to cleanse a throat dry with the thought of losing his son again. "Jason…please. Don't make me do this."

Jason smirks, and his eye, despite being full of tears, is as cold and hard as ice. It isn't hard enough to hide the hurt, however, so Bruce expels a breath, and with the final words he'd kept back.

"Don't make me kill him." Because he'd risk anything; his own life and sanity, to keep Jason from having to.

That shocks Jason, he can tell, and past the raucous sound of the Joker's laughter, Bruce watches as he lowers the gun. "You…you would?"

It pains Bruce to realize that he'd never told Jason that he loved him. That he would die for him…kill for him. "I would."

Then Jay is scowling with an anger more heated than anything Bruce has ever seen, and he raises the gun, and before Bruce can move…Jason clocks the Joker on the side of the head with the butt of the gun, knocking him unconscious.

They stare at each other over the Joker's limp, bloody body.

With no one else there to witness it but family, Batman lowers the cowl, startled to find that his own cheeks are wet beneath the Kevlar. Bruce takes slow steps forward, afraid that Jason will bolt, and he grasps his son's hands in his, gun and all. "Come home, Jay," Bruce pleads. "I've missed you…son."

Jason stares at him, hands not-quite-straining against the hold Batman has on him…and lets his eyes fall closed as he leans into his father's embrace.

"All right, Bruce. I've…missed you, too."

* * *

THE END


	16. Steph: The One Girl In All The World

**The One Girl In All The World**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: What if Stephanie Brown was a Potential? What if the spell to call all Potentials happened when she was fighting Black Mask?  
Notes: Minor Buffy: The Vampire Slayer crossover.

**

* * *

**

Steph knew she was going to die. Black Mask was bad news, on the level of the Joker, only not as insane, which made him deadlier.

And he wanted **her** dead.

Whimpering as his hands clenched around her upper arms, no doubt causing bruises to form under her Spoiler suit, Steph almost didn't notice that his grip didn't hurt as much as it should have.

Almost.

Suddenly, a vision filled Stephanie's head, a vision of a savage woman battling demonic beings with unnatural strength. And Steph knew, in her heart, that that strength was now hers.

A roundhouse right to his face caused Black Mask's head to snap back almost too far, so Steph went easy on the kick to his gut. It still knocked the wind out of him, and him onto his back, a pathetic wheezing filling the air. Black Mask glared at her, and raised his gun to aim at her; Steph spun and kicked it out of his grasp. She kneeled over his chest, and before he could even blink, let alone get any ideas, Spoiler fisted her hands in his shirt and banged his head into the ground until his eyes went swirly.

Before Black Mask even started his bid towards coherency, Steph grabbed the zip-strips Tim had given her back when he was Robin – all her Robin-stuff had been confiscated – and she still had a chance to be accepted by Batman, and tied him up.

The city was in chaos, and it was all her fault. Part of her wanted to just lie down and cry; another part wanted to run as far away as she could before her deceit was discovered.

But mostly, she wanted to make things right. And now…now Stephanie Brown had the power to fix her mistakes.

The Power of the Slayer.


	17. Jason: Gotham's Inheritance

**Gotham****'s Inheritance **

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: The Robins will inherit Gotham. The Robins, and the other Batfamily kids.

* * *

Jason was kinda surprised to find out that Talia had a kid. Not as surprised as when he found out it was Bruce's, though.

Damian Wayne…didn't really sound right, but better than Ibn al Xu'ffasch. _Son of the Bat_; what the hell had Talia been thinking, naming her kid that?

She hadn't been thinking. At least not lately. After his dip in the Lazarus Pit, Jason was thinking a whole lot clearer, though. He remembered why his half-zombified mind had recognized Talia, but now he knew why he couldn't trust her.

A proof borne out when Jason went to check on Damian in the crèche/training room the kid spent most of his time in, and found a playpen in one corner holding two little girls. He had no idea who the kids were, but he knew they weren't Talia's.

Most of the computer hacking stuff Bruce had tried to teach him was harder to remember than the other stuff, but Ra's al Ghul had never been one for technology. It was easy to break the encryption keys on their computer mainframe.

It was kind of a shock to find out that the toddler was the daughter of some blonde chick who was apparently the current Robin, and dating the one before her, but after Jason. Her name was Mary Robinson, and the adoptive parents she'd been kidnapped from – thankfully, Talia had seen fit to try and be sneaky, so they weren't dead – were a lesbian couple living on the better side of the East End.

Jason knew the name Holly Robinson was familiar. He didn't know how, but he knew it. And the East End reminded him of Catwoman. Catwoman, who was the mother of the infant in the playpen, named Helena.

Helena Kyle-Wayne. Apparently Selina Kyle had spread rumors that Catwoman's kid was the spawn of Sam Bradley so none of Batman's enemies would be after her.

It hadn't worked.

For some reason Ra's seemed content to let Talia run things. Talia seemed content to let Jason wander around the League of Assasin's compounds. Either she was naïve enough to trust him, stupid enough to think he trusted her, or unaware enough to think that he was still out of it.

Whatever it was, Jason found it ridiculously easy to befriend Damian, and, with promises of taking him to see his father and five older brothers and sisters – apparently there was also a new Batgirl – have the seven-year-old mini-martial artist help him spirit the two girls away.

It wasn't quite so easy getting across the Atlantic, but he'd left enough clues that only a Bat could follow that Jason knew someone would meet them at the airport.

He just had to hope that his and the kid's homecoming would be a celebration and not a conflagration.

After all, while Damian might have been the only one with the name, they were all Batkids.

* * *

THE END


	18. Steph: What Wants Deserved

**What Wants Deserved**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Steph knows what her baby deserves. She knows what she deserves, too.

* * *

Robin had told her that a child deserved to have both a mother and a father.

Shyeah, right. And Stephanie had deserved to have that, too; instead she'd ended up with a half-rate crook for a father and an addicted lush for a mother. Admittedly, her mom had cleaned up her act, but she knew better than most people that once an addict, always an addict.

And her mom had never been very big on self-control. The parade of 'uncles' passed off as her father's friends that went though her mom's bedroom whenever her dad was in prison was partially responsible for the mindset that had led to Steph's current predicament: a mindset that made Steph try and find approval wherever she could.

That and Dean's ego making him buy condoms that were too big for his average-sized (if that) dick.

But while she hadn't gotten what she deserved, that didn't mean her baby couldn't. It was just that Steph worried. Really, how good was the adoption process in Gotham? What kind of families got the babies? Would her baby go to a home that was even marginally better than what passed for hers on the government census?

Hours and hours of frustrating research later, Steph had to conclude that adoptions in Gotham weren't much better than anywhere else, and a number of foster parents managed to fake being nice and normal up until their kids called suicide and rape hotlines. At least if she kept her baby she could make sure nothing bad happened to it.

Nothing bad…nothing bad except what followed her home at night.

It was at that point that Steph realized, if she was going to keep her baby, she had to make a choice. She could stay Spoiler, and protect the city – while leaving her baby to wither in her absence, and be no better than her dad, albeit with better ethics – or she could give up Spoiler…for the time being…and protect her baby.

Three months of going to Lamaze classes with 'Alvin' who, on their rides home, occasionally regaled her with tales of his nighttime derring-do proved that Gotham was just as dangerous as ever, and the populous was just as oblivious to any of it that didn't come with a cheesy moniker or even worse costumes.

Steph would keep her baby; Spoiler could wait for a while. Maybe forever. But the baby…her baby…wouldn't wait.

And Steph wanted her. And they both deserved to have a chance to make a family.

No matter what Robin said.


	19. Jason–Steph: Meet Your Mark

**Meet Your Mark**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Wee!Jason meets Wee!Steph and they decide to run away together to find a new home – one with Bruce Wayne.

* * *

He'd first met Stephanie Brown when he was eight, and ran away from home for the fourth time. She'd been running, too. They'd both had the same idea of hiding out at school over the weekend while they figured out the next step.

They'd both used the same cracked opened window in Miss McClary's classroom to get inside. They met when Jason threw his dufflebag on top of her sleeping form.

After she'd punched him – thankfully, her aim was off, or Jason was sure his nose would have been broken – they'd had a snack of non-melted s'mores made from her graham crackers, his marshmallows, and a bar of chocolate from Miss McClary's desk, and exchanged horror stories. Only these ghosts were real: their parents.

"We could run away together," Steph suggested, and Jason nodded before he thought. He had no idea what running away entailed after you ran, but surely company couldn't hurt.

"We can't stay here, though," Jason told her. That was how he'd been 'caught' the other times; he'd been too young to realize that he should have stopped going to school. Sleeping there at night was okay, but if he showed up during the day, then, like the first time, his teacher, having a received a call from his ma, would have sent him home, or like the last time, his dad wouldn't have even realized he'd been gone.

Now that his mother was so sick she barely recognized him, Jason didn't think he had anything to lose. He was running away for real this time, and he was never going back. The only thing he was really giving up was school; Crime Alley wasn't exactly a safe roof over his head.

He didn't know how to get a better one.

"We could get someone to adopt us," Steph said, wistfully. "I knew a girl in my last school; her parents died and some other parents took her in and adopted her."

"How could we be sure the new parents'd be any better than the old ones?" Jason asked. He knew just looking at someone didn't do any good; if you only saw the good half of Two-Face's face, he looked like an all right guy.

Half the time his dad was an all right guy. It was the other half that led to his dad drinking and hitting his mom. At least he had it better than Steph; his dad never locked him in a closet.

Never mind that the front door was the only door in their crappy apartment with locks. Steph's life sounded worse than his; at least his ma cared about him. And he'd never been left with a babysitter who was a pervert.

The spent the rest of the weekend trying not to eat all of Miss McClary's chocolate – and only mostly succeeding – and hashing out their plans for Monday morning. Jason knew of some abandoned tenement buildings, and Steph wasn't fussy enough to object.

"You get to kill the rats," she told him, and Jason just shrugged. There wasn't enough food for rats in those buildings; the roaches would be fierce, though.

So they set themselves up in the tenement. During the day, they wandered around, looking for dropped change near parking meters, and on days when they hadn't found enough to buy food, they snuck into one or another of their houses and filched from the cabinets. They also used the shower, and took more of their stuff away.

It wasn't exactly a way to live, and Jason was sure that they'd soon get caught.

"What else can we do, though, Jay?" Steph asked him, nudging their plastic milk crate serving as a table with one sock-clad foot. It had barely been a month, and she was already outgrowing her shoes. So was Jason. "Go up to some swanky couple's house and ask 'em to adopt us?" She giggled. "Yeah, right. No hoity-toity sorts'd look twice at punks like us."

Jason, however, knew differently. "Maybe, they might…**if** we found the right mark," he said, chewing on his lower lip in thought.

Steph looked at him funny, but didn't ask questions. She complained some about him hauling her down to her house the next day to shower and making her put on a dress, but Jason had to wear his good suit – which wasn't really all that good anymore, but at least it was clean – so she shut up quick.

Jason made sure not to make fun of the purple ruffles. The color suited her, anyway.

They had to steal some of her father's stash to afford the bus ride up to the Heights, and once they started the long walk up the driveway, Steph grabbed his hand. The nervous, worried look on her face stalled his protest quicker than any glare.

Besides, it would be a good idea to present a united front. And they'd look cute, like brother and sister, which could only help.

Stephanie rang the bell, and they waited. An older gent answered the door, and didn't even bat an eye when he saw them there, or when Jason asked to see the guy he'd heard about.

They waited in the entryway, and man, was the place swank. Steph couldn't help goggling at the suit of armor in the corner; Jason just wondered if the spear in the guy's hand was sharp enough to do damage.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but probably wasn't, he arrived.

Dick Grayson was only six years older than them, but he was really really tall. Jason didn't like the way Steph looked at him, almost like she'd looked at the suit of armor, but more like his mother used to look at his father, in those hazy memories of when times were good.

"Do I know you?" Grayson asked, and yeah, underneath the unfailing politeness was the hint of a punk. A guy who had an earring and rode a motorcycle way too fast and used to be a circus brat living in a trailer.

Until Bruce Wayne, richest of the rich, adopted him after his parents were killed.

"I'm Jason Todd, and this's Stephanie Brown," Jason said. "We were wondering…our parents aren't dead, but they're not good, so do you think Wayne'd adopt us, too?"

The expression on the d– on Dick's face was priceless, but not as much as the excited expression Steph couldn't quite hide. Yeah, she really liked the idea, Jason could tell.

Hopefully, old man Wayne would go for it. If he didn't…well. Jason had never really had any kind of intuition, but somehow he knew Wayne wouldn't turn them away.

And if he did, Jason could always find them another mark; he'd heard the Drakes were loaded and had a boy their age, and Selina Kyle was back in town, and even though she liked cats more than kids, it couldn't hurt to try.

But still, Wayne looked like their best bet.

* * *

THE END


	20. Steph–Jason: Through A Mother's Eyes

**Through A Mother's Eyes**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Mothers are a powerful force. What if the Robins' mothers had acted a bit more in the best interests of their children?

* * *

Sharon Brown had never been a good mother. She'd known that even back when Stephanie had been new, and so had her burgeoning thoughts of a happy life.

Then Arthur had taken up the mask, and in an effort to not think about it, Sharon had turned to the pain pills her doctor had prescribed 'as needed' for the after-effects of her C-section. Before Sharon knew it, seven years had gone by in a haze of drugs, alcohol, yelling and what could only be termed piss-poor motherhood.

Stephanie didn't like her father's job, and she was mad that she couldn't even tell people that her mother kept house. More often than not, especially lately, Stephanie was the one who reminded Sharon of things that needed to be done, if she didn't just actually do them herself.

Sharon's life hadn't been much better than Stephanie's, but she sure as shit wanted better for her daughter.

The next time Arthur wound up in Blackgate, she took him some papers to sign, saying that his lawyer had given them to her. Caught up in a rant about 'the damn Bat' he didn't even notice that he'd signed his parental rights away, just like she had earlier that day at the legal aid office.

Sharon dropped Stephanie off at the Gotham County Offices for Human Services, with the people who made foster care placements. Stephanie only had three boxes of things, two of clothes that didn't fit right, and one of second-hand toys and battered books. It just made Sharon more sure she was doing what was right.

"Honey, your father…he isn't ever going to change. He doesn't want to. And I…I don't think I can." She swallowed hard at the dawning look of dread and disappointment in her daughter's eyes. "You need…you need real parents, sweetie, and I'm so sorry that we couldn't be that for you."

Even with tears running down her cheeks, Stephanie was much too old for her years. "You're doin' this because you love me and want what's best for me?" she asked, sniffling.

Sharon couldn't tell Stephanie that she didn't even know if she **did** love her. She'd never known real love in her life, and whatever nascent affection she'd felt for Stephanie as a baby had long since worn away. So, in what was hopefully the last half-lie to her daughter, she said, "Yes."

They hugged, once, and then Stephanie went with the social worker, and Sharon waited until they were gone to lock herself in a bathroom stall and cry her eyes out.

Just because it was the right thing didn't make it easy.

* * *

Janet Drake knew she wasn't a very good mother. She'd awfully neglected her son, and so had Jack. In her more tempestuous fits of temper, she was wont to blame it all on Jack, on his need for both an heir and a jet-setter life of travel. In her calmer moments, she knew they were both to blame. She'd married Jack because she'd wanted the same life of luxury and adventure that he did.

But the more time she spent away from home, only to return and find that Timothy had learned to read while they were away – at only barely three years old! – or had started and finished his first semester of pre-school… Well, the more Janet realized she **missed** Tim while they were away. When she mentioned it to Jack, it turned out he felt the same.

That, and the fact that the trip to the circus for Tim's fourth birthday ended with them watching that poor boy's parents fall to their deaths… There was no way either Janet or Jack were leaving for the foreseeable future.

It was hard at first, giving up the travel, staying in Gotham, being parents full-time. Jack escaped to the office more than not, and Janet took up knitting while Tim was in school. She and Jack fought a lot more now that they didn't have the wonders of the world to distract them from their problems, but once they worked things out, Janet felt their relationship was all the stronger for it.

Tim smiled at seeing them now, and it wasn't the faux-for-society smile he'd been starting to perfect. He laughed and played with his father and her, and Janet realized that watching Tim discover ordinary things about their world, such as caterpillars turning into butterflies, was more rewarding than anything she could see in some far-off country.

She and Jack discussed more children, but Janet was already in her thirties. They decided not to risk any complications, and looked into adoption. As it chanced, there was a little girl just Tim's age new to the foster home they looked at. She was adorable, with short blonde curls and a cute little pouty glare. She wore a pink T-shirt with dirt on it, and blue jeans with holes in the knees. Janet **had** always wanted a daughter, and with two and half years of real parenting under her belt, she now realized she couldn't use a little girl as her personal dress-up doll.

Though maybe buying her pretty dresses wasn't entirely out of the question.

The house mother was willing to let them see her alone, but Stephanie, which was her name, didn't seem to want to see **them**. She told them her name, that she was seven, and that her parents didn't want her anymore. Janet was a bit surprised; she'd thought maybe a younger sister for Tim, someone for him to look after a bit. But then, Tim seemed to need looking after himself. Janet told her a bit about Tim, and that seemed to get Steph, as she asked to be called, to open up a bit more. Seemed to, since Janet and Jack spent an hour being regaled with 'Tales from the Life of a Crook's Daughter' as Steph called it.

"And mom…she drank a lot, and smoked some stuff and then just out of the blue she dropped me off **here**, and said she was doin' it 'cause it was the best thing for me, but I hate it here." Steph wrapped her arms round her middle and glared around the room, empty for their visit of the other children that lived there. "Just 'cause I'm not stupid or mean and I don't make problems, no one pays any attention to me. I might as well have stayed with Mom and Dad."

"If we adopted you," Janet said, "we would pay attention to you." And they would, too. She and Jack had determined they wouldn't make the same mistakes with any other children as they had with Tim. occasionally they might overcompensate and be overprotective, but that was imminently preferable to the intense neglect so many children (most of them, unfortunately, in the foster care system for life) seemed to get in Gotham.

"You promise?" Stephanie asked them. The look in her eye was suspicious, as if even if they did promise she still wouldn't believe them.

But they had a lifetime to earn her trust. "Yes," Jack promised, and Janet agreed.

It took ten months for the paperwork to be signed, but they took their new daughter home just six weeks later.

* * *

Selina Kyle had never thought she would be a good mother. She'd never thought she'd be a mother, period.

But once she was one, with little Helena Wayne in her life, she realized she was good at it.

And why not? It had taken four years, after she'd kissed that damnable man in the Bat-mask, before the mask had come off, and he'd been willing to talk about a future together. A future involving him, and the young boy he'd taken in, who shared his same story of having watched his parents.

Compared to how she'd had to help Bruce overcome his emotional barriers, and later Dick as well, loving and caring for Helena – especially with Alfred's help – was easier than breaking into a high-rise apartment in the money district.

Not that she did that anymore. Well, unless Bruce needed it for a case. She would have seethed at the thought of curtailing her livelihood for a man, but Bruce had curtailed his for her. Batman was no longer the entirety of his existence. He'd started taking more of an interested in Wayne Enterprises, and with his societal backing, and her own finances, Selina started a series of shelters in Gotham, determined to give back a bit of what she'd taken, and make things better.

It was the least she could do, since it seemed she lived the idyllic life. During the day, at any rate; at night…things were a different story.

Selina loved the nightlife of Gotham. She loved being out in it as both Selina Wayne and as Catwoman. She knew every hair that existed on the seedy underbelly of the glittery posh lifestyle most in her new social circle moved in. Still, it came as a bit of shock to drop down into the alley where she was supposed to meet Bruce for her ride back to the Cave (with a swing down by the docks to pick up Dick), and find a young boy removing the last tire from the Batmobile.

That didn't keep her from running him down and snagging him with her whip, however. And never mind that Helena had been weaned over a year ago and would start preschool soon; Selina's mothering instincts hadn't withered at all. In fact, they flared up at the sight of another young child in need.

She narrowed her eyes at boy. He was scared, but obviously trying to hide it behind a mask of tough-guy bravado. Selina's heart ached as she thought about why a boy barely ten years old would have had to learn how to act like that. "What's your name?"

He scowled at her, mutinously, so she gave him a saucy little smile, and…yep, it worked, he was just old enough to be interested in girls, never mind that she hadn't been one for years. "Jason," he said, licking his lips. He scowled again and looked away, struggling a bit against the bonds of her whip. "Jason Todd," he added sulkily.

"Well, Jason, what would your parents think if they knew what you were doing?" And truly, even before he told her about his father's killing and his mother's death from cancer, Selina had expected as much. No parents, living alone, and resorting to stealing tires to keep food in his stomach. He needed help, that much was for certain.

Really, when Selina brought Jason back to Bruce, who was waiting at the car – with the most adorable bemused look in his eyes while he examined the empty hubcaps – she'd only intended to ask his opinion on how to go about dropping him by the Department of Human Services. She didn't think she could go in costume, but she couldn't very well let Jason see her out of it.

But when Bruce suggested taking him back to the Cave, it didn't take Selina long to see where things were going. "You think Robin won't mind having a younger bird in the nest?" Selina asked pointedly. It wasn't that she had a problem with another child; on the contrary, she'd been thinking about getting pregnant again now that Helena was out of the infant stage. But there was Dick to consider, of course.

"He did ask for a younger brother for Christmas," Bruce said, and Jason's eyes popped out of his head as he watched Batman smile.

Selina hid her smugness at the sight; he never used to smile in the cowl at all. Or out of it, much, either. "True, but I think he meant a bit younger than this." Selina knew Dick had; at Thanksgiving, he'd asked her if she thought about having any more babies, and she'd said yes. Two weeks later, his list for Santa had been drawn up.

"We'll see," was Bruce's final word on the matter.

Robin seemed a bit leery of Jason, but once back in the Cave, a mutual love of motorcycles was discovered, and it all fell into place from there. Selina had always known Bruce shared a bond with Dick because of their pasts, once that she never could. That didn't mean that either of them loved Dick any less, but Dick was Bruce's favorite. It hadn't been so much apparent when Helena was the only other child around; she was too young to have much of a definitive personality.

With Jason around, things became different. If Dick was eager to please and happy-go-lucky, Jason was a wild child. In truth, there were times he reminded Selina of Bruce, if more reckless and angry. A few stories from Alfred about 'young master Bruce' at that age proved her out: Bruce had been just as full of anger. He'd channeled into becoming Batman.

Jason didn't seem to know how to do the same with his Blue Jay identity, but Selina took him under her wing. In truth, he reminded her a bit of herself as well, and he became her favorite before long. She was nearly devastated when the adoption agency's check returned the possibility that Jason's biological mother was still alive. Even if she had given up her rights, the idea that someone else could lay claim to one of her sons…

Jason didn't seem to feel any kind of pull to find his 'real mother' however, and Selina breathed a silent sigh of relief when the papers were signed, officially making the Wayne household a six person family.

When Jason started calling her 'Ma,' just like Dick, she had to wipe tears from her eyes.


	21. Jason–Steph: Putting The Pieces Together

**Putting The Pieces Together**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: What if Catherine Todd was Catherine Drake? And she was so determined to keep her family together that she'd take on Batman to keep all the Robins together?  
Notes: In Janet Drake's first appearance (as Tim's mother) her name was Catherine.

* * *

Catherine Todd couldn't hate Sheila Haywood. Presumably Sheila had gotten the exact same run-around from Willis that she had.

Catherine couldn't hate Jason, either. He was an innocent baby.

And he was now hers.

She could hate Willis, though, just a little. Her parents had told her that he was no good. But it was the little bit of good in him that she'd fallen in love with to begin with.

Only that bit of good in Willis was growing smaller and smaller by the day, and when Two-Face showed up on their doorstep to talk to Willis about a job… Catherine couldn't take it anymore. This was no life for Jason.

She got the divorce pretty easily, but the courts were initially reluctant to reward her full custody; she might have adopted Jason, but Willis was still his father. When Willis didn't show up for the hearing because he'd been arrested in a raid of one of Two-Face's hideouts…it was no contest.

Two years after she'd forgiven Willis for cheating on her and adopted his son, Catherine Todd left him and took **her** son with her. She started going by her middle name, Janet, and used her maiden name, though her son was still Jason Peter Todd. She got a job working at the free clinic down by old Park Row and went to night school to become a nurse. At an archeology seminar she attended for extra credit points, Janet met Jack Drake.

It wasn't love at first sight, but Jack was handsome, charming, wealthy, and smart. She made sure to find out what kind of man he was during their courtship. Jack liked to travel, but didn't seem bothered that he had to curb back his trips because of a toddler. He also adored Jason.

Two weeks after her graduation as a registered nurse, Catherine became Janet Drake.

Catherine made sure that Jack didn't apply to adopt Jason until they'd been married over a year. Just in case. She'd learned her lesson the hard way. But when she got pregnant, there seemed nothing else to do.

Jason was five when Timothy was born. At first he seemed confused by his younger brother, but over time this developed into a warm and caring friendship. Jack was puffed up like a peacock with pride whenever someone asked about **his** two sons, and if Janet felt they were more hers than his, she'd never deny her boys a father that loved them.

By the time was Jason was in second grade at Gotham Heights and Tim was attending a Montessori preschool, Catherine's life as a thug's wife seemed almost a bad dream to Janet Drake, society wife. Then, in the detox ward of Wayne Memorial, where she worked three days a week, she ran into an old 'friend' of her husband's.

Arthur Brown, the Cluemaster, had brought his wife in for detox. What struck Catherine about the scene in the hospital waiting room, more than how Arthur didn't seem to care about Sharon except how she was 'taking up his time, the bitch' was the little girl with them, just her son's age. The little girl hanging in the background, reading an old copy of _People _magazine quietly, as if she expected no one to notice her.

Her name was Stephanie Elizabeth Brown, Janet was informed when she asked. She was seven and half, had blonde hair with bangs and gray-blue eyes.

She was perfect. Her parents…weren't.

Catherine kept an eye on them even after Sharon was discharged. When Stephanie ran away from home because her babysitter tried to molest her, Janet used her connections to take her in. When Arthur and Sharon returned from their trip, they petitioned the court to get their daughter back.

Ann tried to convince the court she'd gotten clean, though no one could get clean in two weeks, not even of pain pills and alcohol. The jury started to sway her after hearing of her plight, but then Arthur got arrested again, and Janet's attorney saw Ann popping pills right outside the court room.

Jack was a bit bemused by how hard Janet fought for Stephanie, but then, she'd never told him about her life before she met him. And Jack said that a daughter would be just the thing to round out their family.

It was an ideal life, for a few years. With three children in the house, they hired a housekeeper, Mrs. MacIvan. Jason started karate lessons, and quickly attained a yellow belt. Stephanie took gymnastics, and won enough ribbons to want to try for the state championship. Timothy developed a love of photography, and went around taking pictures of everyone, teaching himself the finer points of the art from a book Jack bought him.

Jason was just barely fifteen, Stephanie only a few months behind, and Tim was only ten when Janet and Jack took that fateful trip to the Caribbean. It was supposed to be a second honeymoon; it ended up being a real life horror film. While the Obeah Man had them, and nothing worked but her mind, Catherine kept thinking to herself that she had to live. What would become of her children if she didn't?

When Janet Drake awoke in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down, to find that her husband was dead and her children had been in the custody of Bruce Wayne, the playboy billionaire, for months…she cried. Then she called her lawyers, and tried to find out when she could take her children home.

Apparently, the courts were reluctant to let even a paraplegic – however temporary that condition might be – have custody of three children, even if they **were** hers. Janet quickly set them straight about that; the judge, the jury and probably even the executioner were set spinning on their ears by her diatribe, backed up by Mrs. Mac and her new physical therapist, Dana Winters.

But even six months later, after the funeral and the grief counseling for the kids, and the hiring of a CEO to run Drake Enterprises while she got her legs back and studied how to run a company, Catherine was still suspicious. Never mind why Bruce Wayne had ended up with her children. Better to ask why the children seem like they were hiding something about their time at Wayne Manor from her?

Why did they all sneak out several nights a week?

Jason had been the wild child, always getting into fights. Stephanie was a bit precocious, sometimes following Jason's lead, sometimes leading Tim into trouble. Tim, however, had been a miniature adult right from the start. If Janet hadn't been so worried, she would have rejoiced in the fact that Tim was finally letting himself be a kid enough to break the rules.

Tim was the only one to give her an answer when she confronted him. Bruce Wayne, Batman? Janet found that hard to believe, but then, that deniability must have been the point of Bruce acting like a fop in public, she was sure.

And never mind that, either. The important part of the discussion turned out to be that Bruce was training her children to be vigilante superheroes. Like Robin, only Robin had left Gotham years ago. Dick Grayson was a cop in Bludhaven last Janet had heard, and if she had to guess, he was the new superhero there, the one called Nightwing.

Her kids, out risking their lives at night? Catherine couldn't countenance it, but Tim told her it was only training. Only training, as if she couldn't see that eventually the training would end, and off they'd go, dodging bullets while wearing brightly colored spandex.

Jason and Stephanie at least had some knowledge of physical fighting. Tim…Tim was apparently the only one allowed to superhero, since he was playing air traffic controller for Batman and Batgirl. Wayne didn't have a daughter, so Janet wasn't sure who she was.

But Janet knew who her children were; more importantly, she knew **whose** they were. They were hers. But they were also their own people, or starting to be. At least in Tim's case.

The day she got the doctor's permission to walk without her cane, Janet went to Wayne Manor and confronted Bruce. At first he seemed reluctant to discuss anything with her, but she got him talking with a few thinly veiled threats of exposing him to the media with the pictures her younger son had taken.

He'd only been willing to talk where it was safe, however, so they ended up talking in his Batcave. Since it was a Saturday, her children were there, training. She let them listen to the conversation, even join in when it suited. They were her children, but they weren't her soldiers, and they would have input into their lives.

The deal they hammered out was this: all her children could receive training, but only on nights when they had her permission. They wouldn't have her permission if they didn't behave, and if their grades fell too far. Jason would need to study more in math, Steph in science. Timothy would not be able to train as long on school nights because he needed more sleep.

A mutinous expression crossed her youngest child's face at that, but Steph pointed out that growth spurts only happened when you were asleep, and Jason added that Timmy was already a shrimp and needed all the help he could get.

Wayne agreed to all of that without too much fuss. It was when she said none of them would 'hit the streets' until they were seventeen that the problems started. She wanted to say sixteen, but that would be too soon. Jason would only have a year of training, Steph slightly more. Wayne was her ally in this argument, saying that he had studied for **years** to be as good as he was.

Her life was in turmoil, but at least it would be a few more years before she'd have to worry about her children dying on her.

Those years passed all too quickly, and soon Robin flew over Gotham once more. Janet worried herself to sleep at night, but Jason was careful, and if he came home some nights looking like he'd been in a fight, it was no worse than he would have gotten from brawling with boys his own age.

That didn't stop her worry when Stephanie, as Sparrow, starting working. She wasn't any more careful than Jason, but she was less reckless.

The balm to her soul was Tim, who had come into his own as a 'computer tech geek guru' as Jason put it. The loophole left by his mother's agreement with Wayne meant that he'd been working from the Cave for over two years. His codename was Owl.

Batman had a flock of birds working at his side, and Janet had enough worries and stress that she began to wonder if she'd develop an ulcer. Then Bruce got his back broken by Bane, and Janet foolishly offered to watch over the kids while Batgirl took care of his city during his recovery. Batgirl was Barbara Gordon, and Barbara was dating Dick Grayson. Things got complicated when Batgirl brought in Nightwing, who, despite Bruce's opposition on the matter, donned the Batsuit and became Batman while Bruce was down. Janet found herself spending more and more time in the Batcave, trying to keep tempers from flaring and making sure that Bruce didn't descend into depression.

She had practically moved into Wayne Manor full time during Bruce's recovery. When Bruce was finally able to put the suit back on again, one of the first things Janet did was to make sure he and Dick talked about their relationship. No sooner had father and son finally reached an accord than Janet found herself thrown for yet another loop.

Bruce kissed her. Then he asked her to help him make his house a home, and a nest for their birds.

Both Catherine and Janet were finally in accord: Bruce was a good man, but he needed a lot of work. And he'd have to prove himself before she'd become Mrs. Wayne.

But she thought he was up to the task. And once Bruce did, and they all lived under one roof, Janet would finally have all the pieces of her life where she could keep an eye on them.


	22. Steph: Airing Out The Truth

**Airing Out The Truth**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: When Tim's not Robin, Steph tells his parents the truth about why he should be.

* * *

Steph couldn't believe she was doing this; outing herself as it were.

But it had to be done. Tim belonged out there on the streets, flying the less-than-friendly skies…making things safe.

Maybe even more than she did.

So she knocked on the door, and when Tim's stepmom answered, she smiled and said, "Um, I know Tim isn't here, but I really needed to talk to you and Mr. Drake."

Dana seemed a bit nonplussed, but let her in, and within minutes they were all gathered in the living room.

"What's this about, Stephanie?" Jack asked, and if his voice was a bit brusque, outwardly he appeared as polite as ever. Inwardly…well, Steph put it off to his knowing that Tim was out with his friends and worrying that those friends moonlighted wearing capes.

If he only knew… But then, that was the whole point. "I'm here because you made Tim quit being Robin."

Jack opened his mouth, probably to deny it, so Steph steamrollered over his bald lies, saying, "And I think you should rescind that order."

"W-what are you talking about?" Dana asked, looking back and forth between Jack and Stephanie. "Tim is…who?"

Oh, now **this** was fantastic. Jack Drake was a real shmuck on top of being a bad father. "Tim is Robin. You know, partner to Batman? Saver of lives in Gotham City?"

"Not anymore he isn't," Jack said, and Steph swore she could see steam coming out of his ears. His face was already red, nearly the color of the Robin tunic.

"Yeah, because you made him quit. How could you do that?" Steph demanded.

"He's my son," Jack said. "And–"

Steph's eyes narrowed. "And you've never acted like his father before, so why start now?"

Glowering at her, Jack continued, "–and it isn't safe for him out there, and because I am his father, he'll do what I tell him."

"Because you blackmailed **Batman**, not because he thinks it's the right thing **or** because he respects you." Steph felt victory rush through her as that barbed comment hit its mark.

"Tim is… And that's why… And you… Oohhh, Jack, why didn't you tell me?" Dana demanded, turning to her husband. Confusion and anger and worry and a dozen other things warred for control of her facial expression. "And you…**blackmailed **someone? How?"

"He held a gun on Batman and threatened to expose his secret identity to the world," Steph supplied.

Dana was **not** slow on the uptake; she put it together almost as fast as Steph had. "But that…if everyone knew, then that would put everyone in danger, even Tim!" She stared aghast and accusingly at her husband.

"That doesn't matter, I…" Jack opened and closed his mouth, searching for the words to explain himself. Dana's expression grew even more stormy, and Jack wilted. Having failed to find a way to tell his wife he'd done the right thing, Jack turned on Steph. "Do your parents know you're here?"

"My father is dead, and my mom couldn't care less." That last wasn't **entirely** true, but ever since her pregnancy, Steph and her mother had been more like casual roommates than parent and child. Steph didn't need mothering anymore, and even if she had, her mother still didn't know how.

"Now I can't believe that," Dana said, turning hard eyes on Stephanie. "Your mother is always very conscientious about letting you know when she has to work late and where she's going to be when; I can't imagine that she wouldn't expect the same from you."

Sometimes Gotham could seem so small; her mother worked for the same hospital as her boyfriend's mother. Other times Gotham seemed huge; the gulf between her father's profession and Tim's was…wider than the Grand Canyon "You know her as a good nurse." Steph nodded, feeling her face scrunch, trying not to frown. "I remember her as the women who washed down a bottle of pills with a bottle of Jack Daniels everyday, and only rarely remembered to feed me. When I was seven I learned to make myself macaroni and cheese in the microwave before they even invented Easy Mac."

Dana actually looked shocked. Steph almost laughed, but didn't. Her mother's checkered past would have been in confidential files, and she wouldn't have talked about it. "You mean you didn't know? My mom's an addict. She's gotten clean and managed to stay that way for longer that I thought she would, but once an addict, always addicted, right?"

Jack cleared his throat. "I still don't see what that has to do with–"

Steph interrupted him, trying to keep control. "That's my mother. My father is – was – the Cluemaster. He tried to pull off the Riddler's shtick and failed most of the time."

"And you decided to become a superhero?" Now Jack looked surprised.

Steph smiled at him, showing lots of teeth. "Kids don't always follow in their parents footsteps. I don't seem Tim traipsing off all over the world leaving **you** guys home alone."

Jack flushed and started to rise from his chair. "Young lady, I've just about enough of this–"

"And I've had just about enough of you pretending to be a good father!" Steph shouted him down. _Control, control,_ she told herself, and lowered her voice as Jack lowered himself back down to his seat. "I know about men pretending to be good fathers, all the while convincing themselves that doing what **they** want is what's best for their family. Men who are never there except when they want to be, and think because their kid isn't out in the streets killing people that they aren't internalizing all their problems. Men who think they have the right to control someone they don't even know, just because they provided the sperm."

Jack shook his head helplessly. "That's not…"

"What you intended to do?" Steph asked. "So what? It's what you **did**. Tim was Robin for four years, Mr. Drake. Four. Years." Her mother had known about her after less than two. Granted, there had been extenuating circumstances, but **still**. Her mother hadn't known because her mother had been either high or drunk or both; Jack and Dana just weren't there. "And you were never around enough to know. He gets a black eye from some thug and you believe him when he tells you he tried out for football practice, because you don't know him well enough to know that his school doesn't even **have** a football team!"

"I…" Jack's face seemed frozen in an expression of shock. Dana was almost crying.

Steph tried to feel bad for them, especially Dana, but all she felt was empty. Drained of emotion. "Look, I know you think you're doing what's best for Tim. Trying to give him a normal life. But Tim hasn't had a normal life since he saw Nightwing's parents die. And you've removed him from the community where all his friends are. His support, the people who keep him from going nuts."

"But…but what about Ives?" Dana asked, plainly grasping at straws. "Or that Bernard boy?"

Steph nodded. "Yeah, there's them. Unlike me, they don't know that Tim was Robin. And they're the only two 'civilian' friends Tim has."

"What about you?" Jack asked, finally finding his voice.

This time Steph did laugh. "Mr. Drake, I've been a superhero for as long as Tim has." Well, maybe a little less time, but she was making up for it now. Unfortunately.

Aghast once more, Jack demanded, "And your mother lets you do…that?"

Not bothering to hide her scorn, Steph looked him in the eye. "She lost the right to tell me what to do when I started paying the bills because she was too out of it to know what day it was." She'd been able to forge both of her parent's signatures by the time she was twelve. The wonder wasn't that she'd become Spoiler, but that she hadn't become a part-time forger; the money would certainly be better.

And again, the shock on both their faces was priceless. Had they honestly lived so long in their suburban upper-class life that they'd forgotten this was Gotham, and shit happened to everyone?

Steph shook her head and rose to her feet, turning towards to the door. "Look," she said, pausing in the doorway to face them one last time. "I can't tell you what to do. I don't **have** blackmail information on you, after all." Except for the emotional kind, of course. She let her lips twist into a wryness she didn't feel at that thought. "But I can tell you this. The boy who you think lives upstairs? The one who goes to sleep every night at ten and gets his homework done the night it's assigned and turns in perfect A papers and has no teenage angst. He isn't who you think he is." She let that soak in for a moment, before continuing, voice unswayed by the emotions bubbling beneath her skin, "He isn't a boy. He doesn't go to sleep at ten; he's been living on four hours sleep a night for as many years. He was making those straight As even while being Robin five nights a week. You don't know him at all, and you don't know what he needs. What he needs isn't in this house, it's out there." Steph jabbed a finger at the window. "And the longer you keep him from it, the more he's going to slip away. And sooner or later, you'll lose any chance you had of getting to know him."

Jack and Dana Drake sat silently in the living room of their comfortable suburban home, listening to the echo of the slamming door. Both of them unable to come up with a rebuttal for the scathing words of one teenage girl…when those words were the truth.


	23. Jason: Justice By Just Us

**Justice By Just Us**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Jason ends up falling into leadership of his own team. They are aren't Titans, but they are young, and just them.

* * *

Jason likes visiting with the Teen Titans. Only problem is, it's **just** visiting; they're all on the verge of being twenty-somethings, and anyway, Dick is their Robin.

All he really has is Batman, now that Batgirl is down.

Jason doesn't really know why he does it, but he keeps an ear out for reports of other teen heroes, ones unaffiliated with the Titans. There's a silver girl with energy formation powers, and a guy with enhanced speed and strength who's semi-invulnerable. They team up in New York to catch Firefly, and they're both still around when Jason arrives with Batman to make sure the Arkham guys don't have a problem with him.

They get to talking, and even though the girl, who calls herself Argent after her **credit card** of all things, is clearly an airhead of the first order, 'Risk' is his kinda guy.

The next time Jason visits the Titans, he runs into this chick calling herself Flamebird. He's heard about the Kryptonian legend from Dick, but the newly-named Nightwing doesn't really seem to like his counterpart.

She's hot, not all **that** flighty, and can throw a mean right-cross. Flamebird may have had a crush on the first Robin, but Jason is a better flirt, and he charms her within an hour.

Batman, of course, knows what's going on. He seems to silently approve of Jason's actions. Then Jason knows he does, because when they get reports of some kid with uncontrolled meta powers down in Georgia, Bruce sends Jason down there to help out.

Alone. No supervision. Is this what having Batman's trust is like?

Cool, Jason decides, even after Grant – codename Damage, like that isn't obvious – almost blows up in front of him. Considering how powerful those explosions are, Jason and a three block radius would have been taken out.

Grant ends up staying in the Batcave for a week while Bruce tries to figure out where to send him. Jason gets the Titans communicator that Flamebird talked Cyborg into making for him, and contacts her. He thinks they should all meet up. Bette agrees, and specifies a place, saying that the team needs more estrogen and she's got a friend that could join.

Jason, being Jason, wonders if she's hot. Then he wonders if she can kick ass, which is more important. Then he wonders when they became a team, and asks her if they get a cool Tower to live in. That would solve Grant's problem neatly.

She says she's been thinking about starting a Titans East, but someone with more money than her will have to fund it.

Jason takes the idea to Bruce. He almost seems amused by the idea of **Jason** leading a team, but in all fairness Jason points out that he and Bette seem to be co-leaders. Bruce seems even more amused by the idea of Bette leading a team.

But two weeks later, when he takes Grant to meet the others, he has the address of an abandoned resort in Maine which they can use. Argent and Risk seem to like Grant, which is great because the guy is way too shy for his own good. Confidence in himself will go a long towards getting his powers under control.

Flamebird seems cautious, but then she's been in the biz even longer than he has, and is wise in the ways of the superhero world. She's brought Tara, who isn't the original Terra, but even if she is, seems to have gotten amnesia about the whole sociopath thing.

Also, she's hot, and can kick ass. Sweet.

Jason tells them about the resort, and they're all so busy being excited beyond belief that Bette is the first one to ask if Batman's running the team.

Jason shrugs and tells them he doesn't think so, which seems good enough for all of them, coming as it does from Robin.

They set up shop in the less-dilapidated parts of the resort, do a few home repairs – Risk and Argent are great at that – and buy some groceries. They have a campout on Saturday, even though they've gotten the place livable. Before he leaves on Sunday evening, Jason makes sure Grant is settled in, and Cody says he's staying too. He doesn't give a reason why, and Jason doesn't really care.

They all agree to meet on the weekends and practice their powers and shit. It seems to help them all to work with a team, or to spar against a team.

Batman seems pleased at Jason's progress, and he tries not to be flattered.

After a few months of practice, 'Titans East' is a pretty tight team. They stop a few crimes around the neighborhood, catch a rogue meta and even a minor villain. Really minor; it's the Rainbow Raider, and he's one of Flash's.

They're the newest superheroes on the block, so of course they get a lot of coverage. After taking down the Raider, suddenly the TV guys are calling them 'Young Justice'.

It's kinda cheesy, but what the hell.

It fits.

* * *

THE END


	24. Steph: If You Can't Beat 'Em

**If You Can't Beat 'Em…**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Steph is Helena's sidekick now. Babs doesn't think that means she has to join the Birds of Prey; Helena doesn't, either, but Stephanie thinks differently.

* * *

"You can't possibly dislike her as much as you used to dislike me," Helena said, and Barbara silently conceded the point. Not even most of her dislike for Helena had been because of her affair with Dick; a great deal of it had been caught up in her lethal methods.

Time, and lots of therapy, had proven to her that she was just jealous of someone else having what she wanted. Dick, and…revenge.

But none of that made up for Helena bringing someone into the Birds without asking. Barbara said as much, trying not to sound as pissed off as she was.

"I didn't bring her in," Helena said, amused. "She brought herself. Just because she's my sidekick now, she seems to think she needs to follow me around. Besides, she's been here before and she already knows who you are, so why are you complaining?"

Barbara sighed. The fact that Stephanie reminded her so much of herself at that age didn't help. While she'd had more self-control, more discipline…she'd also had a loving father who was a cop, not a supervillain. "Leaving aside the fact that besides Dinah, I thought you'd be the last person to take on a sidekick…sooner or later, she's going to want to go on missions."

Shrugging, Helena said, "She's never going to get better if she doesn't get some practice."

"Why do you want her to get better?"

"Why **don't** you?" Helena counted. "He's doing the same shit to her that he did to me, and with less reason. And if I recall my Batlore correctly, he didn't like the **first** Batgirl all that much at first, either."

Barbara flinched, but kept the pain those memories brought hidden. "True, but Stephanie doesn't even have as much training as I did." High-level gymnastics and women's self-defense classes, plus some judo moves the officers at the precinct had taught her.

Helena snorted. "Yeah, but Batman gave you training…didn't he?"

Actually, most of it had been Robin, but once Bruce had finally realized she wasn't going to leave, he'd allowed Dick to bring her to the Cave and had given her **some** instruction. The same moves didn't always work for women as well as they worked for men, and vice versa. Barbara liked to think that eventually he'd come to accept her for herself, and not just for Dick.

After Jason, he hadn't liked letting anyone in. Babs still thought that him taking on Tim was a miracle. Stephanie apparently wasn't going to get a free ride on Tim's cape like she had on Dick's.

Closing her eyes and trying to rub away the headache forming, Barbara said, "So you want her to become…what? The Birds' sidekick, not just yours?"

Helena shrugged almost diffidently. "Why not? She could use the moves. And Cass could use a friend around more often."

The pointed reminder of Barbara's own 'sidekick' was meant to make her think, and think she did. Cass didn't need instruction in anything physical; Barbara had her come to the Clocktower mostly so she could keep an eye on the girl, especially now that she was learning to talk.

However, Cass **did** need socialization instruction, desperately, no matter how much Bruce seemed willing to deny that fact; Bruce had never been one to turn to as the pinnacle of well-adjusted behavior. So…Cass could learn how to socialize, by having someone her own age there. Stephanie could learn how to fight so she **wouldn't** end up being only a costume in a glass case.

"She's not getting paid," Barbara said, and wheeled away to the sound of Helena's raucous laughter.

* * *

THE END


	25. Jason: Familial Duties

**Familial Duties**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Tim wants to leave the family – permanently. That gives Jason a reason to rejoin it – partially.  
Warning: Talk of suicide.

* * *

Jay may have been an evil son-of-a-bitch (according to Dick), a sewer rat (according to Bruce), and a waste of potential (according to Babs), but there were some things even he didn't do.

He didn't kill kids, no matter how fucked up or strung out they were, he didn't kick puppies (or kittens), he didn't steal from little old ladies (or little old men), and he didn't spit on or otherwise defile anyone's grave.

Except the Joker's. Really, the bastard had had it coming, and Jay only regretted that he hadn't been able to go through with it the first time. But he had done it, and like he'd known, it had only driven his 'family' farther away.

All except the new little bird. Not so little anymore, but imminently more fragile since the latest happenings in the hero world. Even Jay, who these days only felt anger and annoyance and some frustrated form of satisfaction that **wasn't** contentment, felt a twinge of pity for the kid.

The new Flash, the new **dead** Flash, was one of the few heroes Jay couldn't paint with the brush of 'stupid, arrogant, too afraid to get their hands dirty'. He'd heard about 'Impulse' and the kid was…sweet. He never used that word about anyone or anything, but the speedster had been sweet. He'd believed the best in everybody and did the right thing because it was **right**. One of those good-to-the-core, pure of heart people that were written about in fairy tales, but never really existed in the real world.

So really, it should have come as no surprise to find out that losing that 'ray of light in his life' or whatever, had knocked Timmy completely off his rocker. But that didn't explain why the kid had chosen to come to **him**.

"What in the world are you doing here?" Jay demanded of the civvy-clad teen perched on his windowsill. The kid was wearing jeans loose from recent weight-loss, his ribs visible on one side of his chest where his long-sleeved shirt was pulled taut.

Both in shades of gray, as if all of Robin's colors had bled out of him, even more than just the green.

"I wondered if maybe you'd be in the mood for the finishing the job tonight," the not-Robin replied.

It was only the complete and utter lack of emotion in Tim's voice that kept Jason from realizing the import of his fellow bird's words – at first. "Wait… You–"

"Want you to kill me, yes," Tim replied, as bland as the oatmeal Alfred had fed him when he'd had the measles. "I know you'd be able to do it so no matter what Bruce tries, he won't be able to bring me back."

Jason scowled and yanked the boy inside. Tim hung, limp as a rag doll from his hand. "And it'll just give daddy dearest another reason to hate me, too, right?" Though not even he was mad enough at all the Bats to think that little Timmy would ask him to be his Kevorkian just to make Bruce hate him more.

Tim shrugged, but the dead shine to his eyes was what really burned Jason up. He had to get angry, he couldn't afford to **care**, to **feel** for this…kid.

He didn't kill kids. No matter how fucked up.

"He already hates you," Tim told him, and was too out of it to notice Jason's flinch. "Or has convinced himself he does. If you kill me, at least he won't end up hating two of his sons instead of just one."

Jason barked a laugh, incredulous. "You're so depressed that you want to end your life, and you're **still** trying to make things better for your 'family'?" The last word came out in a snarl as Jason shook the little bird, wanting to wring his neck, and knowing he wouldn't. If the kid could actually think things through that much when he was falling apart inside…maybe Tim was a better Robin than Jason had even been.

Better than Dick, too, considering what his older brother had been up to when last they'd met.

Tim blinked and looked at him. There was a spark of life left, but whether the embers could be fanned into anything resembling a flame, Jason had no idea. "All I have left is duty."

Duty. That's what Jason had had, once upon a time. Duty to his mom, and then she'd died. Duty to himself, and then Bruce had come along and given him something better. Duty to Gotham, only she was a harsh mistress and Bruce was too controlling. So was Talia, but at least she wasn't a hypocrite.

Gotham was his, too, maybe even more than Bruce's since he **lived** Gotham instead of owned her. When he'd come back, Jason had decided to do things his own way.

"And you think your duty is to give up and die?" Jason demanded, words sharp and cutting as the five knives he had scattered around his person.

Tim shrugged; only one shoulder, as if he couldn't spare the energy for both. "Isn't that what you wanted?" he asked.

Jason gave him a look filled with 'Are you even more nuts than Bats thinks I am?'

"When you attacked me at Titans Tower," the other clarified, reading his silent cues like a good little Robin. "Didn't you want to kill me?"

Jason had wanted to hurt him, make him pay for replacing him so thoroughly that no one remembered he'd been Robin, that no one had been there when he'd come back except Bruce's bad girl ex. He'd wanted to make the kid bleed and hurt like he'd been hurting, punish Tim in lieu of himself, because Jason had already been punished and it hadn't fixed anything.

"No," Jason said simply, and folded his arms over his chest.

Another shrug, this time from the other shoulder. "So does this mean you're not going to help me?" Tim asked dully. It was only the barest bit of emotion, but finally the kid was showing some life, even if it was half-dead.

And Jason was evil now, or so **they** say. But he did what he did, killed who he killed, because it needed to be done.

Maybe, just maybe, he also did it to get Batman's attention. Not like that worked; not like anything in their fucked up family ever worked.

"Not the way you think you want." With that, Jason gassed the kid, catching his too-light form as he dropped unconscious. For a Robin, the formula for knockout gas he used should have taken an entire minute to drop him.

With as wiped and out of it as Tim had been, it hadn't even taken ten seconds.

Sighing, Jason bent down and hauled Tim up into his arms. "You better be worth this, kid," Jason muttered under his breath as he carted the much-too-light form of his replacement into the bedroom. He'd watch the kid for a few days, get some food into him, try and talk him out of his suicidal mindset. If that didn't work, he'd drag Tim down to Leslie's and get her to recommend a shrink.

Jason told himself he didn't know why he cared, but he did. Tim was a Robin, which made him family. And even if Jason was currently on the outs with Big Daddy Bat, and Big Wing, and…well, everyone…he did still have some duties to fulfill.

And while his loyalty to the biggest rule of the Mission might have dissipated, his loyalty to his family never had, no matter what Bruce thought.

* * *

THE END


	26. Steph: Valid

**Valid**

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: It's not Batman's approval Stephanie's after now.

* * *

Tim might not have liked that Batman gave her his name, but it gave Steph a place to start. If she could figure out who Batman was – like Robin had told her he had in order to get the job – then Batman would **have** to admit that she was good enough to work in Gotham.

And it wasn't like she had anything else to do while she was 'convalescing.'

So Robin's name was Tim. Timothy Drake, aged sixteen, attended Brentwood Academy. Father Jack Drake, mother Janet Drake deceased, stepmother Dana Winters-Drake (so **that** was how Robin knew her back when they fought the animal lady!), no brothers or sisters.

Which meant that Nightwing, who called Robin 'little brother,' wasn't actually related to Tim. Which meant that he probably was the first Robin, who maybe was related to Batman, and called Tim his little brother because he was the new Robin.

It took over two months of searching through the newspaper archives at the Gotham City Library – the paper archives, not the computer ones, because for some reason, no matter what she tried, the computers worked against her – but Steph was finally certain that Tim was the **third** Robin. There'd been another one a few years after Nightwing had…been promoted? Whatever, the second Robin had flown for about two and a half years. Then it had been another two years or so before Tim put on the suit.

So Batman was someone with maybe two sons. And he had to be someone who'd known Tim during the time his father was in the hospital, since from what little Robin had told her, that was when he'd started training to be Robin.

Tim had been staying with Bruce Wayne while his dad was in a coma. Could Bruce Wayne be Batman? At first Steph didn't think so – it didn't seem possible – but then she got to thinking. Maybe the playboy billionaire act was…well, an act. No one would think that foppish himbo was actually Batman, right?

And he did have two sons: Dick Grayson, currently a cop in Bludhaven, Nightwing's territory; and Jason Todd, who was deceased.

He'd died around the same time the second Robin had…disappeared.

That set Steph back. It had never really occurred to her before, but being a costumed crime-fighter was just as dangerous as being a costumed criminal. You could die as either one.

Losing a son… It was one thing to want to make things better for other people's kids, but why risk it when you had kids of your own?

It made Steph wonder if it was worth it. If fighting crime was worth risking your own life, leaving grieving family behind.

All she had to do was look at the face of her son to realize that maybe it wasn't. And maybe…maybe she didn't need to look to Batman for validation.

She could make her own. Little Donovan Brown needed her, and she wasn't going to risk making him lose her.

* * *

THE END


	27. Jason: Wrong And Good, Bad And Right

Wrong And Good, Bad And Right

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Jason stops his dad from killing Dick's parents.

* * *

His dad's always been on the wrong side of the law, but he's hit a new low ever since his mom got sick.

'Cause Two Face told him to, he's going to spend the night at the circus – knocking off some kid's parents so the circus owner will pay protection for the one stinkin' weekend they're even **in** Gotham.

The kid's only a year or two older than him.

Jason doesn't know much about how the world works. He knows a lot about Gotham, though.

One thing he knows is that Batman, while he might not see everything, certainly watches his own territories: that free clinic down by Crime Alley, Arkham, Blackgate, and the roof of the Gotham City PD.

The roof where the Batsignal is kept.

Jason climbs the fire escape on the empty gym next door, shoves a ladder across and almost kills himself walking across it. Then he leaves his note taped to the Batsignal – with URGENT! scrawled across the front in giant red letters; yes, it's crayon, but he doesn't **have** anything else – and hopes it's enough.

Three weeks later, his dad's in prison for attempted murder, his mom's getting worse, and the lady doctor from that free clinic shows up at his door.

Jason always knew Batman took down the bad guys; he just didn't ever know that he helped the good guys like this.

Or that he was a good guy.

* * *

THE END


	28. Steph: Actions Which Bring Results

**Actions Which Bring Results**

* * *

_I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results. – Florence Nightingale_

* * *

Rating: PG  
Summary: Steph didn't have a chance to make her choice, so she has to rethink some things. Time heals all wounds, after a fashion.

* * *

When Steph first sees the blood, she thinks she's having her period. Then she remembers that she's pregnant.

Three hours later, in Doctor Leslie's clinic, she finds out she isn't – anymore.

Stephanie Brown has had a miscarriage.

For weeks she isn't sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, she was going to have to give the baby up for adoption – even if she didn't **want** to, it would be what was best for the baby. Now she doesn't have to.

On the other hand, her baby is…dead, before it even got a chance to live.

Knowing she didn't have any choice in the matter doesn't make it any easier to deal with. In fact, it makes it worse; she'd chosen, but didn't get to follow through. Stephanie tries journaling for a while, but while it helped her deal with her (lack of) parents and the problems of being a teenage vigilante (and for a while, a teen mother-to-be), it doesn't help. She can't find the words to write, and when she does, they don't matter.

Steph decides that if she can't find the words, maybe someone else has found them. She goes to the Gotham City Library and checks out books on post-partum depression, fetal fatality, and, of course, miscarriage.

Three months after it happened, Steph has moved on, past books on pregnancy in general (she read enough of those in the few months she **was** pregnant) to books on child development, on gynecology, on bones and tendons and blood and how to fix them.

She finds she's actually **interested** in learning about healing people, and that interest is the first thing that's felt real since she miscarried. Even her nascent relationship with Robin had fallen by the wayside in her grief, he unable to do anything to help her heal.

Steph had to do it herself.

Steph starts studying harder in school (her grades hadn't dropped while she was pregnant, but during the few months afterward when she wasn't, they'd slipped quite a bit), and asks Leslie if she could help around the clinic.

Leslie is hesitant, but she says yes anyway. Steph wonders if it has anything to do with the rumors that Leslie knows Batman.

Probably. Batman knows **everything** that goes on in Gotham. Especially about people that once wore a cape.

It hits Steph, six months after it happened, when she **should** have been giving birth, that she'd stopped being Spoiler. She hadn't really thought of it before, which worries her. Spoiler had been such a big part of her life for **years**, and now…

Now she wasn't.

Steph looks at her old costume one night after getting home from the clinic. She smells like disinfectant and there's a Band-Aid on the second finger of her left hand where she scraped herself on a shelf in the clinic's storeroom when she was restocking tongue depressors.

The Spoiler suit smells like leather and sweat, and a little bit like Gotham night winds and fabric softener.

It's not her anymore.

The night life is, though. Steph's starting to feel restless, even as she grows more sure that the path of healing is one she wants to take. Not just dealing out punishment, but helping the people those punished have hurt. Leslie's told her (when she asked, point blank) that physically she's as healed as she's ever going to be, and she seems to be as well mentally too.

Only one way to put it to the test.

One month later, a week after applying for a scholarship to John Hopkins, Steph steps out the backdoor of Leslie's clinic into Crime Alley. Her new costume is the same midnight blue as her old costume's mask. It's a one-piece leotard with a convenient zipper near the waist. It's styled a bit like Robin's around the gauntlets, boots and belt, but more like her old suit on the thigh-holsters, cut and padding.

The cape is slimmer, has more Kevlar (thanks to Cass, who was always willing during the past half-year to hang out with her and not make her talk), and is indigo, with a half-mask that covers from her nose upwards.

She needs to breathe in the night.

Taking a deep breath of that air, Steph shoots off her grapple. With one quick tug and heartfelt prayer, Nightingale takes wing that night.

* * *

THE END


	29. Jason: Sharing Friends

**Sharing Friends**

* * *

Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Jason doesn't like sharing anything with Dick – but Superman's friendship is too cool.

* * *

Superman had always been Robin's friend. Of course, that was back when Robin was Dick Grayson.

Robin is Jason Todd now, and Jason is more scared than he's ever been in his life. More conflicted, too.

Batman told him to stay **outside** the warehouse. But the Joker is **inside **the warehouse, with his **mother**, and how can he stay outside?

How can he go inside, when it's the Joker? The Joker is the scariest motherfucker to ever walk the streets of Gotham City, and even though they're not **in** Gotham, that just makes it worse.

Jason knows Gotham. He grew up in Gotham. Gotham is **his**, and this place…is the Joker's.

Superman might be Metropolis' hero, but he knows the whole world. And Babs once told him that he can hear you even in outer space.

Jason only hopes that Superman will come for him, even though he's not the Robin Superman is friends with.

"Superman!" Jason shouts, and hopes his call is answered before the Joker finds him. He can't stay in the same spot; he has to hide. But he's not going into the building, which is what Batman wanted.

And they aren't in Gotham, so Batman can't say anything about metas in his city. Jason hopes **he** can say something about Superman saving his mother.

There's a sort of exploding sound, and Jason jumps, heart trip-hammering with the thought that his shout caused the Joker to set off his bomb, but then his eyes catch up with his head, and he sees the red-blue flash of color flying overhead.

Five minutes later, Batman is there – and so is Superman, with the Joker trussed up to his now-defunct bomb. Sheila is crying on the ground, and even though Jason doesn't know the whole story of why she worked with Joker, he knows you don't just leave women crying by themselves.

So Batman's angry silence, and the angrier words he undoubtedly wants to speak, can wait. Sheila needs him.

And maybe it's too late for her to be his mother. Maybe it's too late for him to need a mother.

But seeing Superman lay a calming hand on Batman's shoulder, and seeing Batman actually **back down** from a confrontation, Jason knows that you can never have too many friends.

Even if you **do** have to share them with Dickie the Dick.

* * *

THE END


End file.
